 "US Green Card, US Passport, US Immigration")
Former President Barack Obama first introduced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2012. (Photo: Shutterstock)
Immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children and raised in the United States joined demonstrators Thursday outside the federal courthouse in New Orleans, where three appellate judges ruled the Biden administration’s decision to protect them from deportation. Hear arguments regarding policy.
At stake in the long-running legal battle before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals are approximately 535,000 people without citizenship or legal residency status who have built their lives in the United States for years. It is the future. The possibility of eventual deportation.
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No matter what was said or done to me, I chose America and I have a responsibility to make America a better place for all of us, Grisa Martinez Rosas said Wednesday. She is a beneficiary of this policy and a leader of the advocacy group United We Dream. She will travel from Arizona to attend a rally near the courthouse where hundreds of policy supporters are expected to gather.
The panel hearing the arguments will not issue a decision immediately. Whatever they decide, the case will almost certainly end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Former President Barack Obama first launched the “Early Childhood Act” in 2012, citing Congressional inaction on legislation aimed at giving legal status and a path to citizenship to people brought to the United States as youth. introduced the Deferred Action Program for Arrivals. Years of litigation ensued. President Joe Biden renewed the program in hopes of gaining court approval.
But in September 2023, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Houston said the executive branch overstepped its authority in creating the program. Hanen barred the government from approving new applications, but left the program in place for existing recipients, known as Dreamers, pending appeals.
Defenders of the policy argue that Congress gave the executive branch’s Department of Homeland Security the authority to set immigration policy, and states that challenge the plan have no basis to sue.
Nina Perales, vice president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said at a press conference this week that she has not identified any harms that could flow from DACA.
Texas leads a group of Republican-majority states opposing the policy. The Texas Attorney General’s Office did not respond to an email request for an interview. But they and other challengers argue in briefs that if the immigrants are allowed to remain in the country illegally, the state could face hundreds of millions of dollars in medical, education and other costs. . Other states include Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kansas, and Mississippi.
Among those states’ allies in court briefs is the Immigration Reform Law Institute. “Congress has repeatedly refused to legalize DACA recipients, and no administration can do so on their behalf,” Dale L. Wilcox, the group’s executive director, said in a statement earlier this year.
The panel hearing the case is comprised of Judge Jerry Smith, who was appointed to the Fifth Circuit by former President Ronald Reagan. Edith Brown Clement, nominated by former President George W. Bush. and Stephen Higginson, nominated by President Obama.
First published: October 10, 2024 | 3:08 PM IST
