The Fifth Circuit is set to hear a motion to lift the district court stay of the President Obama’s recent actions on immigration.  U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen blocked the President’s November executive action which grants relief from deportation and work permits to approximately 5 million undocumented workers including many who currently reside, work and pay taxes in Texas.  Hanen refused to lift the stay while the Administration appeals to the Fifth Circuit.   Off the Kuff reports that the panel hearing the motion may not be too friendly to the Obama Administration’s position. The panel includes Judges Jerry Smith, Jennifer Elrod and Steven Higginson.  In fact according to Kuffner, it may be downright hostile.

Smith’s conservatism is tribal and, at times, belligerent. It would be very surprising if he cast a vote in favor of politically controversial programs spearheaded by Barack Obama.

He is joined on the panel by Judge Jennifer Elrod. Elrod is a George W. Bush appointee, while Smith is a Reagan appointee, so her record is not as thick as Judge Smith’s.

Elrod’s record on immigration suggests that she will take a similarly conservative approach. In Villas at Parkside Partners v. City of Farmers Branch, the full Fifth Circuit voted 9-5 to strike down a local ordinance that effectively made it a crime for undocumented immigrants to rent a home. Elrod dissented from this decision, claiming, somewhat improbably, that the ordinance “does not constitute a regulation of immigration.”