A federal judge in Texas on August 31 denied a request for a temporary injunction being sought by eight states, which filed a lawsuit in May, that would have stopped DACA recipients from renewing their applications, The Daily Texan reports.
The student newspaper at the University of Texas, Austin, reports that US District Judge Andrew Hanen of the Southern District of Texas based his ruling on the fact that the lawsuit was filed six years after President Obama created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program
“Here, the egg has been scrambled,” Judge Hanen wrote. “To try to put it back in the shell with only a preliminary injunction record, and perhaps at great risk to many, does not make sense nor serve the best interests of this country.”
“It’s a huge sigh of relief,” the New York Times quoted Marielena Hincapié, the executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, as saying after the ruling. “This is a huge loss for Trump and the Department of Justice, who clearly want to end the program.”
President Donald Trump announced on September 5, 2017, that he wanted to end the DACA program, urging Congress to enact meaningful immigration reforms. But so far, none have been passed, leaving the fate of the program to the courts.
Judge Hanen in 2015 issued a ruling in a case that would seem to indicate he believed the DACA program was illegal, making his ruling last month a bit of a surprise. “As the Justice Department has consistently argued, DACA is an unlawful attempt to circumvent Congress,” a spokesperson for the lawsuit was quoted as saying.
But Judge Hanen said here:
The reality of the situation is that [DACA] conferred lawful presence and numerous other benefits, and many DACA recipients and others nationwide have relied upon it for the last six years. … DACA is a popular program and one that Congress should consider saving.
