WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the Deferred Action Policy for Childhood Arrivals is illegal, ruling ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration that the Deferred Action Policy for Childhood Arrivals brought to the U.S. as children It cast a cloud of uncertainty on more than 500,000 illegal immigrants.
A panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that found the Biden administration’s rules codifying DACA violated U.S. immigration law. The 2012 Obama administration memo that originally created the policy was also found illegal by a federal court.
But Friday’s ruling does not immediately change the status quo. By suspending the order, the panel kept DACA open to current recipients and closed it to new applicants, as the program has been in place for several years.
For more than 12 years, DACA has allowed hundreds of thousands of immigrants who entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas as minors to live and work in the United States without fear of deportation. They are known colloquially as “Dreamers,” a nickname derived from the DREAM Act, a bipartisan effort to legalize them that Congress has been considering for more than 20 years. However, it was not approved.
A 5th Circuit panel upheld a lower court’s order invalidating the Biden administration’s DACA regulations, but narrowed the ruling’s impact to only Texas, which is spearheading a Republican-led lawsuit against the program. It was assumed that it would be applied. The panel suspended the ruling related to current DACA recipients and allowed the renewal to continue pending another ruling by the Fifth Circuit or the Supreme Court.
The panel also ruled that DACA’s proposed deferral of deportation is legally separable from the work permits recipients receive, and that deportation protections should remain in place even if the work permit provision is repealed. The Biden administration won in part because of its insistence that this is the case.
There were about 538,000 immigrants enrolled in DACA as of the end of September 2024, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which oversees the effort. To qualify for this coverage, applicants had to prove that they arrived in the United States before June 2007 by their 16th birthday. Graduated from an American high school or joined the military. He also had no serious criminal history.
Friday’s ruling could pave the way for the U.S. Supreme Court to finally settle the years-long legal battle over DACA. However, it is unclear how the incoming Trump administration will handle this incident or whether it will seek to end the program. President Biden’s Justice Department has vigorously defended DACA in court, while the first Trump administration tried to phase out the policy, calling it illegal. Supreme Court 2020 blocked the termination of DACA For technical reasons.
The Justice Department declined to comment on Friday’s court order.
Trump’s transition team did not immediately say how the incoming administration would approach DACA. President Trump and his advisers have vowed to launch a sweeping crackdown on illegal and legal immigration, overseeing mass deportations of people living in the U.S. illegally, and enacting stricter border controls. , vowed to reduce the legal admission of immigrants and refugees.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called the Fifth Circuit’s decision “a victory for Texas.”
“I look forward to working with President-elect Donald Trump to restore the rule of law and finally stop the illegal immigration crisis,” Paxton said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Grisa Martínez Rosas, executive director of United We Dream, a progressive organization representing DACA recipients, denounced the court order as an “attack” on “immigrant youth.” .
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