A federal court in Texas ruled this Friday against the legality of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, following the request of nine Republican attorneys general, to end this immigration relief for dreamers.
Thus, it orders that the Department of Homeland Security stop approving new applications, but indicates that those who already enjoyed this immigration relief will be able to renew it, given that "it would not be fair to suddenly end a government program that has created such a remarkable dependency."
[5 keys to understanding the Supreme Court ruling in favor of DACA]
Federal District Judge Andrew Hanen clarified that the order does not oblige the Government to take "any immigration, deportation or criminal action against any recipient of DACA," a program on which more than 650,000 young people in the United States depend.
The other states that sued along with Texas were Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia, all with Republican governors or attorneys general.
This is
the second time a federal judge in Texas has blocked President Joe Biden's immigration plans
after a court lifted its 100-day moratorium on deportations.
DACA recipients in front of the Supreme Court, June 18, 2020.AP Photo / Manuel Balce Ceneta
The Supreme Court decided in June 2020 that this immigration relief approved by former Democratic President Barack Obama almost a decade ago could go ahead, invalidating its cancellation by former President Donald Trump in 2017.
After that ruling, other lower courts forced the Government to restore DACA to full capacity, and with the arrival at the White House of Biden in January, thousands of young people have registered for the first time or have renewed their application.
However, the Supreme Court ruling was based on formal grounds (specifically, on how the Trump administration processed its annulment), without ruling on the legality of the program itself.
For this reason, a group of attorneys general from nine Republican states, led by Texas, again brought DACA before a federal court in Houston to achieve its annulment.
Biden issued an order to strengthen DACA after his arrival at the White House, but the fate of the dreamers (young people who arrived illegally in the country when they were children by the hand of their parents, who have not known another homeland than this) depends, beyond of judicial ups and downs, that Congress is able to agree on a definitive solution.
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The president promised to pass immigration reform,
but was met with a Republican blockade: Democrats have a (meager) majority in the House of Representatives, but only 50 senators in the Upper House compared to 50 Republicans.
The vice president's vote gives them an advantage in the event of a tie, but a legal reform requires 60 votes, that is, the support that Republicans have repeatedly denied.
["Once again we have won": dreamers celebrate the ruling ordering the reinstatement of the DACA program in its entirety]
Democrats presented this week an ambitious social program in the Senate that they want to pass through a reconciliation procedure, a legislative modality of very limited use that would allow it to be carried out despite Republican obstruction.
In this legal package they also want to introduce a path to citizenship for thousands of immigrants, presumably including Dreamers (and perhaps farm workers and other essential employees), but the details are not yet clear.
Meanwhile, the fate and fate of the hundreds of thousands of young migrants will now depend on the decision of the Texas federal court being appealed to a higher court, a path that will foreseeably end again in the Supreme Court (with a conservative majority and with three magistrates appointed by Trump) if Congress does not remedy it sooner.