Judge hears suit challenging DACA
Texas argues that Obama circumvented Congress
HOUSTON — A decision on the legality of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program could come under a Joe Biden administration after a U.S. federal judge heard arguments Tuesday in the Texas lawsuit.
As expected, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen did not immediately rule on the hearing, during which both sides asked for a ruling instead of holding a trial.
Led by the Texas Attorney General’s Office, Texas argued that President Barack Obama circumvented Congress’ authority on immigration laws in creating DACA in 2012. The program protects immigrants brought to the country illegally as children and extends limited protections to about 650,000 people.
“This program was unlawful at its inception, and it continues to be unlawful today,” Todd Disher, a lawyer with the Texas Attorney General’s Office, told Hanen.
DACA recipients, represented by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, disagreed. They said that the states lacked standing to sue and asked Hanen to dismiss the case.
While the United States Supreme Court in June tossed a Trump-led lawsuit over DACA, the case in Hanen’s courtroom is from a separate 2018 suit brought against the federal government. Texas and the eight other states — Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia — argue that they face irreparable harm from the program, saying they have to shoulder extra costs from providing education, health care and law enforcement protection to DACA recipients, according to the original petition.
The defendants’ attorneys on Tuesday argued that the states failed to show DACA caused injury, especially because costs associated with services to immigrants can’t always be attributed to the program, they said. Ending DACA, they said, doesn’t mean that all immigrants will leave or be deported.
“We know from history that the federal government does not have the resources to remove all of individuals; so they’re not going to,” said Douglas HallwardDriemeier, an attorney working alongside MALDEF.
The DACA program grants recipients a 2-year work renewable permit and reprieve from depor
tation proceedings. Recipients must meet several qualifications, including arriving in the United States before 16 and being 30 or younger as of June 2012; passing a background check; and being enrolled in school, having graduated or having earned a GED.
Texas has the most DACA recipients in the nation after California, with more than 120,000 such young immigrants as of 2018.
Hanen in 2018 rejected Texas’ request to stop the program via a court order, but years earlier in 2015, he ruled that Obama could
not expand DACA protections and halted a program shielding the children’s parents.
Congress hasn’t acted on the deferred action program, which President Donald Trump’s administration has tried to end. The U.S. Supreme Court said the leaders didn’t follow proper procedure, and a subsequent lower court ruling out of New York last month required the administration to begin accepting new applications.
When he rules on Tuesday’s hearing, Hanen could order a full hearing in the case, rule that DACA is lawful or unlawful, or dismiss the case outright.