The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case assessing the legality of the immigration initiatives announced by President Obama in November 2014.

Obama wants to make it easier for as many as 5.5 million people living in the US illegally to stay and work. Does immigration law give him the power to do this? As the Supreme Court prepares to weigh on the issue, Andrew Rudalevige, Thomas Brackett Reed Professor of Government at Bowdoin College, says there are important questions the justices have to consider.

Rudalevige was writing in the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog.