A federal court on Tuesday is considering a petition for invalidation of the DACA program, which protects approximately 650,000 young immigrants who have come to the United States as children from deportation, and its decision could pose problems for the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden .
A federal judge in Houston will hear arguments Texas and eight other states that want to end to the Delayed Action for the Arrival of Children program, known as DACA.
The hearing comes just weeks after DACA was reinstated by a federal judge in New York, in a year when young dreamers have been given no reprieve.
In the United States, there are 1.3 million of young migrants eligible for the program, according to calculations by the Migration Policy Institute.
Both Texas and the other states argue in this lawsuit that DACA’s original terms contrary to the constitution by bypassing Congressional authority on immigration laws. They also ensure that the program depletes state resources for education and health.
The other states that are suing are Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Carolina, and West Virginia.
[Contestamos dudas sobre el período de inscripción para nuevos solicitantes de DACA]
In defense of the program, a group of DACA beneficiaries will be present, represented by the Mexican American Legal and Educational Defense Fund (MALDEF). They argue that Texas and the other states have no procedural legitimacy, the same basis on which the Supreme Court rejected the state issue before the election.
How it affects beneficiaries
Although President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to protect the program, a decision against it could limit his options.
What questioned in the lawsuit is the legal basis of the program itself. With an unfavorable resolution, young immigrants again lose the opportunity to enjoy protection from deportation and their work permit, among other benefits of the program.
Both parties have filed for summary judgment to end the case in their favor.
Why is it different from other lawsuits?
Federal courts have already rejected President Donald Trump’s attempts to end DACA.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration had to fully restore the program, on the order of a federal judge in New York. The government accepted applications again, including new applicants. Work permits were also extended for two years and the general protection against deportation.
[Este dreamer salvadoreño deportado vuelve a soñar con regresar a EE.UU. tras la reanudación de DACA]
But the Houston case does not respond to Trump’s decision to dismantle the program on Sept. 5, 2017, but the states are trying to directly question its validity. from the original program memorandum drafted by former President Barack Obama.
DACA has been restored, but there are problems
The program was restored at the beginning of December, but that does not mean that the situation has automatically improved for the beneficiaries, the so-called dreamers. On the contrary, they’ve been dealing multiple obstacles.
“Every day we get calls from young people trying to apply for protection from the program for the first time. The problem is that for many, the hardest thing is to quickly documentation that the government is asking them to verify their residence in the United States, ”Karina Ruiz, chair of the Coalition of the Dream Act in Arizona, told EFE.
[Las preguntas de inmigración más destacadas de esta semana a nuestra abogada Alma Rosa Nieto]
To be eligible for the program, undocumented youth must show the federal government that they were in the country on June 15, 2012, and that they arrived before their 16th birthday.
Verifying this requires many to request their school records, a process that can take a long time and made even more complicated by the pandemic.
Arguments for and against DACA
The state that the end of the program claim that the program is a ‘unlimited understanding of executive power that if left unchecked, it could allow future presidents to dismantle other properly enforced laws. “
MALDEF’s Saenz argues that Obama had the authority to institute DACA and states are unable to file a lawsuit.
The June Supreme Court ruling preventing Trump from ending the program should serve as a guide, he adds.
“If I were a judge, I would look to the Supreme Court and say to myself, ‘If this was an illegal program according to the majority of the Supreme Court, why wouldn’t they just have said it?” Saenz wondered. .
[5 claves para entender el dictamen de la Corte Suprema a favor de DACA]
District judge Andrew Hanen, who is hearing the case, rejected Texas’s request to stop the program in 2018 through a preliminary injunction.
But Hanen believes that DACA, as enacted by Obama, it is unconstitutional.
In 2015, Hanen ruled that Obama could not expand DACA protections or institute a program to protect his parents. “If the nation really wants to have a DACA program, depends on Congress just say it ‘, the judge wrote in 2018.
What alternatives do dreamers have?
“DACA must be replaced with a legislative approach,” said Thomas Saenz, president of MALDEF.
“DACA has always left this sword of Damocles hanging over it (an ongoing threat),” Michael Olivas, professor emeritus at the University of Houston and an expert on the program, told The Wall Street Journal.
[“Una vez más hemos ganado”: dreamers celebran el fallo que ordena restablecer el programa DACA en su totalidad]
‘No matter what, unless these people can become citizensThey will always be in danger, ” he added.
With information from AP, Efe and The Wall Street Journal.