Colo. to join other states
Colorado announced Wednesday that it plans to join more than a dozen other states in a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s move to dismantle the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals initiative, which protects from deportation young immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.
“President Trump’s decision to end the DACA program is outrageous and risks the futures of more than 17,000 Coloradans,” Gov. John Hickenlooper said in a statement. “Colorado benefits when (DACA recipients) have the opportunity to thrive in our communities and the only country they’ve ever known. These young people should not have to suffer because of our broken immigration system.”
Hickenlooper added that while the legal action is “no substitute for the sort of comprehensive immigration reform that can only come from Congress, it sends a necessary message that the rule of law and basic notions of fairness
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still matter in this country.”
The Democrat, considered a potential presidential candidate in 2020, also urged Congress to pass legislation to protect DACA.
New York, Washington state and Massachusetts are leading the lawsuit.
Hickenlooper decided to join the legal action even though Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman disagreed with the stance and declined to represent the state.
The governor’s legal counsel will act as a special attorney general and represent Colorado in the filing, which is the standard protocol when the governor and attorney general disagree on a case.
In a statement Wednesday afternoon, Coffman, a Republican, reiterated her opposition to the lawsuit and her belief that the matter is for Congress to resolve.
“In Colorado, my office has the independent authority to take legal action on behalf of the state when I believe doing so is in the state’s best interest,” Coffman said. “In this case, I do not. Nor do I support the legal arguments in the Democrats’ lawsuit.”
Coffman, who is considering a run for Colorado governor in 2018, has positioned herself in the middle of the contentious immigration issue and noted that she did not join with other Republican attorneys general in challenging the legality of DACA as part of a separate lawsuit. She said both legal challenges surrounding the program could leave DACA recipients in limbo, and that’s her chief reason for not signing onto either.
“To reiterate, I believe that this will not be settled in court,” she said in an interview with The Denver Post. “I’m not concerned about what a court’s going to do, I’m concerned about the length of time it takes and that a court decision could just chop up DACA and leave people with no policy at all. If a court decision struck down DACA and said, ‘This was not within the president’s authority,’ we could have all these folks without a direction in one day.”
Hickenlooper has publicly split from Coffman on other legal cases with major political implications. In 2015, when Coffman joined a legal challenge to block the implementation of the Clean Power Plan, a key priority for President Barack Obama, Hickenlooper balked.
The governor is averse to lawsuits to settle political disputes, telling The Post in 2015: “This notion of everyone suing all the time every time you disagree with a specific remedy, a specific statute, is part of what makes people so frustrated with government.” And the fact he joined the DACA lawsuit demonstrates the significance of the issue, according to the governor’s office.
Coffman also declined to take on a legal case from the governor earlier this year challenging the Trump administration’s delay on federal methane emission rules and agreed to let Hickenlooper use counsel outside of her office.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced last week that the Trump administration would be ending DACA, a policy directive formed in 2012 by Obama. About 800,000 young immigrants living in the nation unlawfully and brought to the U.S. as children have protections under the program and are anxiously awaiting to hear what’s next.
The Department of Homeland Security is no longer accepting new DACA applicants for the two-year, renewable work permits provided by the program. Those enrolled can continue to receive protections from DACA until their permits expire. The Associated Press reports those whose permits expire by March 5 will be permitted to apply for two-year renewals as long as they do so by Oct. 5.
Democrats and Republicans have criticized Trump for his decision to unwind the program, including many of Colorado’s top politicians. Legislative protections for DACA are being floated by Congress in order to find a solution before DACA recipients’ permits expire.