More than a year after the Trump administration attempted to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who came to the US while underage still do not know their ultimate fate. On Friday, US District Judge, John D. Bates, ruled that the Trump administration does not have to accept new applications for the Obama-era program, but that renewals must be processed while legal appeals continue.
Bates is one of several federal judges presiding over four separate lawsuits attempting to either eliminate or maintain the deferred action program, created via executive action in 2012 by President Barack Obama and which current President Donald Trump tried to shut down last year.
The program has been kept alive for months by judges in the likes of New York and California, with injunctions issued and the government ordered to continue processing applications for program renewals. But, another lawsuit questioning the constitutionality of DACA is now underway in Texas. If US District Court Judge, Andrew S Hanen, who blocked an executive action from President Obama to shield undocumented immigrants from deportation if they had children with US citizenship, rules that the program is unconstitutional over the next few weeks, the issue could be fast-tracked to the Supreme Court.
Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, led several states in threatening the White House with legal action if it did not close down DACA, and in May, filed a new lawsuit arguing the program’s unconstitutionality.