Supporting Immigration

Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson's office has filed an amicus — or "friend of the court" — brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow President Barack Obama's 2014 immigration reforms to move forward after prolonged legal delays. In addition, 15 other states and the District of Columbia assert that the lower courts erred in concluding that the immigration directives would harm states. The states are supporting a plan announced by President Obama in 2014 that would allow as many as 4.5 million immigrants to apply for relief from deportation. Peter Lavallee is the Communications Director for the Washington State Attorney General's Office.

LAVALLEE: It's an outside party saying to the court we think we've got an important perspective to bring to a case which we did with several other states here to give our perspective as states to the Supreme Court.

Of course not everyone agrees with the Administration's immigration policy.

LAVALLEE: Texas and the states that are part of its case said what the Obama Administration is trying to do on immigration is going to hurt us as states and we said, well hold on, there's another perspective here. We think these reforms would actually help the states so we thought that was a valuable perspective to bring to the court. The most important thing is it's going to provide clarity for everyone involved; workers, ag producers, the entire industry about what the status is. For Washington alone it's about 100-thousand people.

And that's Washington Ag Today. I'm Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.