The U.S. Justice Department will appeal a judge’s ruling that determined a federal program protecting young immigrants living in the U.S. from deportation is illegal, President Joe Biden said Saturday.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, in the south-central state of Texas, invalidated former President Barack Obama’s program Friday, ruling that Obama acted unlawfully when he created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in 2012 by executive action.
In a White House statement released Saturday, Biden said Hanen’s ruling was “deeply disappointing” and renewed calls for Congress to “ensure a permanent solution.”
Hanen’s ruling agreed with a group of U.S. states, led by Texas, that sued to end the DACA program.
While Hanen’s order did not affect immigrants already covered by DACA, Biden said the ruling “relegates hundreds of thousands of young immigrants to an uncertain future.”
Dreamers
DACA has enabled hundreds of thousands of young people, who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or overstayed their visas, to remain in the country. Those protected under the program are commonly known as Dreamers, based on never-passed proposals in Congress called the DREAM Act.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation in March creating a pathway to citizenship for those affected, but it failed to gain traction in the Senate.
Immigration advocates will try to add a provision to protect Dreamers in a comprehensive budget bill Democrats hope will be approved by Congress this year, though it is uncertain if the language will remain in the final version.
Some information for this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press.
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