Judge denies request to end DACA

Six conservative states had sued to end program

HOUSTON — A federal judge on Friday declined to order that the U.S. government halt an Obama-era program that shields young immigrants from deportation, marking a blow to President Donald Trump and other opponents of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen said Texas and six other conservative states that sued to block DACA couldn’t prove that allowing the program to continue was causing irreparable harm. The judge questioned the legality of DACA but argued that more harm would be done to DACA recipients if they lost the program.

The judge, who has ruled against DACA-related programs in the past, essentially said the states waited too long to ask for the preliminary injunction.

“Here, the egg has been scrambled. To try to put it back in the shell with only a preliminary injunction record, and perhaps at great risk to many, does not make sense nor serve the best interests of this country,” Hanen wrote in his ruling.

But he reiterated that he believes DACA as enacted by then-President Barack Obama is unconstitutional.

“If the nation truly wants to have a DACA program, it is up to Congress to say so,” Hanen wrote.

The states filed the lawsuit in Texas, hoping Hanen would stop DACA recipients from continuing to renew their enrollment. That would have triggered a conflict with three federal orders that have required the U.S. government to keep accepting DACA renewals, even after Trump tried to end the program last year. Legal experts say such a conflict would have drawn the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Department of Justice released a statement Friday commending the judge for addressing the legality of the program.

“As the Justice Department has consistently argued, DACA is an unlawful attempt to circumvent Congress, and we are pleased the court agreed today,” spokesman Devin O’Malley said.

With the Trump administration now opposing the program, some states that support DACA — along with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF — intervened in the lawsuit to defend it.

The lawsuit followed the same strategy that stopped an expansion of DACA also proposed by the Obama administration. After Obama announced he would create a program protecting the parents of children in the U.S. without legal permission, Texas sued in federal court in Brownsville, Texas, where Hanen is based.

Hanen ended up with that case and ruled the expansion of protections was unconstitutional.