Judge Block Obama’s Immigration Policy

A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Barack Obama's plan to protect millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation.

US District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, Texas, ruled in favour of some two dozen US states opposed to the administration's plan.

In November, Mr Obama announced a plan to spare some 4.7 million illegal immigrants in the US from the threat of deportation.

The President used his executive authority, bypassing Congress.

An additional 270,000 people would be able to stay under the expansion of a 2012 program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) that offered deportation relief to people who were brought illegally to the United States as children, allowing them work.

That expansion was scheduled to begin on Wednesday.

Some 26 states sued the administration to halt the programmes, arguing Mr Obama's orders violated US constitutional limits on his powers. They requested an injunction to block the programmes from going into force while the legal process played out.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott praised Judge Hanen's ruling, saying: "The President's attempt to by-pass the will of the American people was successfully checked today."

But President Obama said he believed the issue would be resolved in the White House's favour.

"With respect to the ruling ... I disagree with it," he told reporters in the Oval Office.

"I think the law is on our side and history is on our side."

The White House has previously defended the executive orders as within the President's legal authority.

It has said the US Supreme Court and Congress have allowed federal officials to set priorities in enforcing immigration laws.

An appeal would be heard by the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.