United We Dream Action holds a "DACA Is Not Enough" rally in Lafayette Park near the White House in Washington, D.C., in August 2021. File Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI |
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Oct. 14 (UPI) -- Nearly 600,000 immigrants enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will be able to continue renewing their two-year protections from deportation and their work permits while a court case over the program proceeds, a federal judge ruled Friday.
However, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen of the Southern District of Texas, who ruled last year that DACA was unlawful, wrote Friday that he would continue to prohibit the federal government from approving new DACA requests, siding with arguments by Republican-led states.
Friday's ruling was in response to a one earlier this month from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which found that the Obama administration did not have the legal authority to create DACA in 2012, according to CBS News.
The appeals court sent the case back to Hanen, saying he should determine whether a new by the Biden administration would impact his findings.
Anticipating a loss in the appeals court, the Biden administration in August codified DACA into regulatory law and rescinded the 2012 memo by then-U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano that originally created DACA.
The legal move was aimed at countering the July 2021 lower court ruling by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen of Houston, who said the Obama administration had illegally implemented DACA.
DACA survived an attempt by the Trump administration to end it when the Supreme Court ruled in June 2020 that the administration had done so improperly and restored the program.
Meanwhile, Texas and eight other states filed a separate lawsuit in 2018 challenging the program's constitutionality and argued that the Obama administration exceeded its authority by creating an immigration program without congressional approval. The lawsuit has led to a years-long legal battle.
The program has approved more than 800,000 people over the past decade, including 101,000 current DACA recipients who live in Texas. Across the country, 93,000 first-time applicants have had their DACA applications halted as a result of Hanen's ruling.
