CNN
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Nine Republican-led states asked a federal judge in Texas on Tuesday to block a rule that would have provided protections for nearly 600,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, often referred to as “Dreamers.” .
It is the latest move in the ongoing legal battle against the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) and poses another threat to the hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries who are able to live and work legally in the United States.
The Biden administration issued a rule last year to “preserve and strengthen” DACA, largely maintaining the program’s standards. The statute comes as litigation against a previous memorandum about the program is ongoing.
A few months later, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld a district court ruling that DACA was illegal, but sent the case back to lower courts to rule on the legality of new rules that strengthened the program.
On Tuesday, Republican-led states called the rule “unlawful” and called for it to be blocked.
“The final rule—the latest incarnation of the DACA program—is essentially illegal for the same reasons as the DACA Memorandum. The Court should declare it illegal and unconstitutional, strike it down in its entirety, and permanently ban its implementation (to existing DACA recipients. make a deliberate transition),” the document said.
The case is before Judge Andrew Hanan of the Southern District of Texas, who ruled in July 2021 that DACA was illegal and blocked the government from approving new applications for the program. Hanen’s order, however, allows the program to continue serving current registrants while the case is litigated. This is still the case today.
Immigrant advocates and administration officials insist that Congress has a responsibility to provide protections for DACA recipients.
Democrats and Republicans have long sympathized with the hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, many under the age of 10. But the trade-offs between Democrats and Republicans over the Dreamers make it difficult to reach a bipartisan compromise.
