Professor Michael McConnell weighs in on the delicate legal issues surrounding a 5th Circuit appeal of a decision to halt President Obama's executive order on immigration for The Washington Post. 

The Obama administration will attempt Friday to convince a federal appeals court to lift a lower-court ruling that has blocked the government from implementing the president’s executive actions to shield undocumented immigrants from deportation and to grant them work permits.

In a rare oral argument before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, Justice Department lawyers will have at least one hour to make their case that a federal judge in Texas erred in February when he halted Obama’s deferred-action program as he deliberates over a lawsuit filed by 26 states.

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In the politically charged atmosphere, “the judges need to be very careful in a case like this,” said Michael McConnell, director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School. “They want to make sure they’re deciding on the basis of law, and not policy disagreements, and they want it to be seen as they are being careful. They will be accused of being political no matter what they do, but at least they’ll by giving the administration all the time in the world to defend itself.”