Biden pledges appeal of “deeply disappointing” ruling

WASHINGTON» President Joe Biden said Saturday that the Justice Department intends to appeal a federal judge’s ruling deeming illegal an Obama-era program that has protected hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation. Biden renewed his calls for Congress to create a permanent solution.

He said in a statement that Friday’s decision was “deeply disappointing,” and although the judge’s order did not affect those already covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, it ”relegates hundreds of thousands of young immigrants to an uncertain future.”

The program has allowed thousands of young people who were brought illegally into the United States as children, or overstayed visas, to live, work and remain in the country. Many of the recipients, commonly known as “Dreamers,” have now been in the U.S. for a decade or longer.

But Texas and eight other states sued to halt DACA, arguing that President Barack Obama lacked the power to create the program because it circumvented Congress. U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Houston agreed. And although his ruling left the program intact for existing recipients, it barred the government from approving any new applications.

In his statement, Biden urged Congress to move forward with legislation to protect those covered by the program permanently. “Only Congress can ensure a permanent solution by granting a path to citizenship for Dreamers that will provide the certainty and stability that these young people need and deserve,” the president said.

The House approved legislation in March creating a pathway toward citizenship for those impacted, but the measure has stalled in the Senate. Immigration advocates hope to include a provision in sweeping budget legislation Democrats want to pass this year, but it’s unclear whether that language will survive.

Hanen, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, ruled that the creation of the program violated the Administrative Procedure Act, in part because comment from the general public was never sought. “DHS failed to engage in the statutorily mandated process,” he wrote, “so DACA never gained status as a legally binding policy that could impose duties or obligations.”

A backlog of new and renewal DACA applications had accumulated because the pandemic hampered government processing of immigration cases.

“I was working through the pandemic and going through this process for years,” said William Cabeza Castillo, 32, a DACA recipient in New York who was brought to the United States when he was 3. “This makes me feel like a second-class citizen.”

Cabeza Castillo, who worked as a health aide at a hospital, is on unpaid leave because his renewal — required every two years — has not been processed and his protected status, which he had since 2014, expired June 20.

Knowing that Friday’s ruling did not affect renewals was still not reassuring, he said. “It’s a lot of uncertainty. I’m frustrated by the whole system.”

Biden moved to strengthen the DACA program on his first day in office, and in the absence of comprehensive immigration reform, the idea of extending a path to citizenship to the young immigrants who have enrolled has attracted bipartisan public support.

But the court ruling in Texas has introduced a new complication for the hundreds of thousands of people who have been able to build families, buy homes and work at jobs in the United States without fear of deportation. The ruling also represents a new challenge for Biden as he attempts to build support in Congress for his ambitious plan to allow up to 10 million other immigrants to live in the country legally.

“Unless Congress acts for the Dreamers, DACA is likely to be entangled in litigation and legal doubt for a while,” said Michael Kagan, director of the immigration clinic at the University of Nevada-las Vegas. “And there’s no reason to think Congress will act quickly or easily.”

Lawyers from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund had urged the judge to refrain altogether from ruling, citing Biden’s directive to the Department of Homeland Security to create rules to fortify the program, and legislation introduced recently in Congress that would put Dreamers on a path to citizenship.

“The decision does not reflect new developments in the law, including from the Supreme Court and therefore presents many grounds for successful appeal,” said Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of the legal defense fund.

“The most important thing is, current recipients are protected,” he said.

Texas led the effort to terminate the program, and was joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia. Officials in those states had argued that the program was improperly adopted and left them with the burden of paying for education, health care and other benefits for immigrants who remained in the country under DACA’S protections.

In his 77-page opinion, Hanen said that Congress had reserved the broad authority to regulate immigration, and that it had declined several times to give legal status to a group like the Dreamers.

“The executive branch cannot just enact its own legislative policy when it disagrees with Congress’ choice to reject proposed legislation,” the judge wrote. “Congress has not given DHS the power to enact DACA.”

About 650,000 immigrants are enrolled in the program. Among them are some 200,000 front-line workers who have performed essential jobs in health care, agriculture, food processing and education during the pandemic.