The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] on Friday asked [petition, PDF] a federal appeals court to vacate sanctions imposedd by a district judge. The sanctions are apart of an ongoing immigration debate where 26 states sued [text, PDF] over the president’s Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) [materials, PDF] immigration policy. The sanctions [JURIST report], which require any DOJ lawyer appearing in court in any of the 26 states undergo a mandatory ethics class. The DOJ stated in its petition:

the district court reached far beyond its authority here and dictated the scope and content of ethical and professional responsibility training for thousands of attorneys if they appear in any federal or state court in the 26 plaintiff States. These extraordinary measures imposed by the district court transgress the constitutional separation of powers and usurp the Attorney General’s statutory authority to manage the Department and set policy for ethics training and enforcement and to determine which attorneys may represent the United States in litigation throughout the nation.

Earlier this week the DOJ formally objected [JURIST report] to the federal judge’s order requiring DOJ lawyers to attend ethics classes.

The case at issue, United States v. Texas, has been taken up [JURIST report] by the US Supreme Court. The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the injunction against the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) [materials, PDF] policy last May, a month after Hanen declined to lift [JURIST reports] the stay he imposed in February. In March of last year the DOJ urged [JURIST report] the Fifth Circuit to reverse the injunction blocking the president’s immigration executive action. In November 2014 Obama announced two new immigration programs [text], purportedly under his executive authority as president. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and the DAPA would lift the threat of deportation for about 4.7 million undocumented residents by allowing immigrants that have been in the US for more than five years or have children who are citizens to register and pass a criminal background check in order to stay in the country.