A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the controversial Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, was illegal but stopped short of allowing a nationwide injunction issued by a federal judge in Texas to go into effect. The three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit ruling on the case restricted the scope of the injunction to Texas to allow further appeals.
DACA is, in my opinion, the toughest part of the illegal immigration catastrophe facing the United States to solve. DACA enrollees arrived in the United States as very young children when their parents or guardians illegally immigrated. They are culturally American and frequently can’t speak the language of their home country and have no family or social ties to it. There are an estimated 580,000 DACA enrollees.
DACA beneficiaries, often referred to as Dreamers, have been able to obtain driver’s licenses in states that do not issue them to unauthorized immigrants. They have also qualified for in-state tuition rates and state-funded educational grants and loans in some states, as well as health care.
The average age of the recipients was 21 when the program was established. Now, most are in their 30s. Many have completed college, built careers and started families If DACA were to end, they would no longer be authorized to work in the United States.
DACA, as the Texas judge ruled (Surprise Court Ruling Lands a Major Blow Against Joe Biden and Illegal Immigration Advocates – RedState), has no basis in law. It does not even rise to the level of a regulation. DACA started out as a 2012 memorandum signed by Obama DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. It was never an executive order. It never went through the rule-making process required by the Administrative Procedure Act. It has never been enacted into law by Congress. Ordinarily, any memo by a cabinet secretary ceases to have validity when they leave office, not so with DACA. When President Trump’s DHS secretary rescinded the DACA memo based on the advice of the Attorney General of the United States, the Supreme Court held, in a 5-4 vote (guess how the Chief Justice voted), that the Trump administration was required to follow the Administrative Procedure Act to withdraw a memo that was never subjected to that act, see The Supreme Court Rules Trump Can’t End the Illegal DACA Program Because Nothing Matters Anymore. This is the second time this particular case has been heard by the Fifth Circuit and the second time the Fifth Circuit has ruled DACA unconstitutional; see Fifth Circuit Rules DACA Is Illegal but Somehow It Keeps on Moving – RedState,
The case is headed back to the Supreme Court, minus the rather stupid issue of whether a single memo by a cabinet secretary can masquerade as the law of the land.
