A group of people demonstrate in front of the US Supreme Court in defense of the 'dreamers', in June 2020.JONATHAN ERNST / Reuters
A federal judge in Texas, a Republican state, on Friday considered the program that protects undocumented immigrants from deportation in the United States illegal. Andrew Hanen's ruling now prohibits new applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The decision, however, does not cancel current permits for hundreds of thousands of recipients known as
dreamers
. The decision of the togado can still be faced by the federal government in court.
Democratic President Joe Biden, who was vice president when Barack Obama created the program in 2012, has said he wants to create a permanent path to citizenship for DACA recipients. On his first day in the White House, the president made it clear that this reform would be one of his priorities within his ambitious immigration plan. A few hours after his inauguration, he sent to Congress a proposal for legislation that contemplates the regularization in eight years of the 11 million undocumented persons who are estimated to live in the country, once it is verified that they do not have a criminal record and that they are up to date. with the payment of taxes. At the top of the list it placed the nearly 700,000
dreamers
(dreamers).
The reform that Biden proposed to Congress on Wednesday includes offering immediate permanent residence to
Dreamers
.
The president also signed an executive order asking his government to take all steps to preserve and strengthen DACA.
More information
The 'dreamers' cherish their dream
A judge orders the Trump administration to restore the program that protects the 'dreamers' from deportation
The DACA program did not offer these young people a path to residency or citizenship, but it did offer protection against deportation and renewable work permits, allowing them to continue their studies and build a future in the country that is their only home. . Without support on Capitol Hill, Obama proceeded by decree, a faculty of the Executive branch, and did not see DACA as a permanent option, but as a patch until Congress passed legislation, which has not yet happened nine years in a highly polarized environment. between Democrats and Republicans.
A federal judge ordered, in December, the last month of the Trump Administration, that it fully restore the DACA program. During the 2016 election campaign that brought Trump to the White House, the Republican promised to end Obama's immigration proposal. Already in power, he ended the program in September 2017, initiating a court battle that culminated in the summer of 2020, with a Supreme Court resolution that determined that President Trump had not followed legal procedures to end DACA. In response, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf reinstated the program but only partially, introducing the aforementioned limiting memorandum. In November, Judge Garaufis invalidated all provisions of the memorandum, determining that Wolf had taken office illegally.The decision made this Friday in Texas is a new chapter in the long legal fight that the program has seen since its decree.
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