7 States Sue President Trump To End DACA

(No Ratings Yet)

Loading...

Summary: Seven conservative states are suing the White House to force them to end DACA. 

Seven states have come together to sue President Donald Trump. They want him to end the controversial DACA program, which provides work permits to thousands of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States when they were children. The lawsuit was filed by Texas’ attorney general, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

  

What

Where

Search Jobs

The program, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, began in 2012 under President Barack Obama’s administration. It protected eligible undocumented immigrants from deportation and allowed them permits to lawfully work and go to school in the US. Since its inception, almost 690,000 people known as Dreamers have enrolled.

The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Texas was joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia.

“Our lawsuit is about the rule of law, not the wisdom of any particular immigration policy,” Paxton said. “Left intact, DACA sets a dangerous precedent by giving the executive branch sweeping authority to ignore the laws enacted by Congress and change our nation’s immigration laws to suit a president’s own policy preferences.”

The lawsuit wants the federal government to stop issuing work permits to Dreamers and to declare DACA unlawful. It is not requesting the deportation of Dreamers or the revocation of their permits. However, Dreamers stand unprotected if the program ends.

In September of last year, Trump announced that he would end DACA as part of his plan to fight illegal immigration. The move was met with outcry from Democrats, who filed their own lawsuits to uphold DACA. Those cases are pending.

Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said that this week’s lawsuit was “ignorant” of the law.

“Today’s filing by seven retrograde states comes nearly six years after DACA was introduced and many weeks after three other federal courts began to order that the DACA initiative continue despite Donald Trump’s attempt to end it,” Saenz told NPR. “With a federal attorney general who erroneously and precipitously advised Trump that DACA is unlawful, today’s lawsuit is plainly collusive between two attorneys general each egregiously ignorant of the law.”

This week’s lawsuit was a fulfillment of a promise made by Paxton last year. He threatened in June that if Trump did not end the program then he and other state AGs would file.

Proponents of DACA argue that its removal could lead to Texas losing 100,000 workers and cost the country billions of dollars in losses. They also said that the end of the program could result in countless families being separated by deportation, according to the Texas Tribune. 

Paxton has stated that DACA oversteps the law and was unconstitutional.

• Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Trump Administration’s DACA Appeal  
• What Are Trump’s Positions on Key Legal Issues? 
• Trump Orders End of DACA 
• Trump Working with Democrats to Help DACA Participants 

What do you think of DACA? Let us know in the comments below.