U.S. immigrants sue over Trump’s end of deportation protection
IRVINE, CALIF.» Six immigrants brought to the United States as children who became teachers, graduate students and a lawyer sued the Trump administration Monday over its decision to end a program shielding them from deportation.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco alleged the move violated the constitutional rights of immigrants who lack legal status and provided information about themselves to the U.S. government so they could participate in the program.
“The consequences are potentially catastrophic,” said Jesse Gabriel, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. “These people can very powerfully and very clearly communicate the extent to which they organized their lives around this program.”
The lawsuit joins others filed over President Donald Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program which has allowed nearly 800,000 immigrants to obtain work permits and deportation protection since 2012.
More than a dozen states from Maine to California have sued over the administration’s decision to phase out the program, alleging similar constitutional viola- tions. So has the University of California.
The impact of Trump’s decision directly weighs on plaintiffs’ personal lives and decisions they made to advance their careers in the U.S.
Viridiana Chabolla, a 26year-old law student at UCIrvine, said she does not know how she would repay a loan she took out to cover living costs or how she would afford books or food if her protection from the program known as DACA is rescinded.
“I imagined in the years to come I’d be able to get a job and would be able to pay it back,” said Chabolla, whose parents brought her illegally to the U.S. from Mexico when she was 2. “I imagined I’d at least have DACA.”
The lawsuit claimed that the administration’s decision violates the immigrants’ rights to equal protection and due process.
The plaintiffs — who are from Mexico and Thailand — include teachers, a medical student and 34-year-old lawyer Dulce Garcia, who recently signed a lease for an office and hired employees believing she could stay and work in the U.S. under the program, said Gabriel, an attorney for the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.