District Court Declares DACA Unlawful

This afternoon a federal district court judge in Texas declared that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program is unlawful and barred the federal government from admitting new individuals into the program. The decision in Texas v. United States is sure to be appealed, though there is a reasonable chance it will be upheld.

The Supreme Court narrowly rejected the Trump Administration’s effort to rescind DACA in Dept. of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California. Importantly for the present case, Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion conspicuously avoided any determination that DACA itself was lawful when adopted. Further, controlling precedent in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit holds that the Obama Administration’s DAPA immigration reforms, the lawfulness of which rested on a similar legal theory, was illegal. That case went to the Supreme Court, and the Fifth Circuit’s decision was affirmed without opinion by an equally divided Court (which was short-handed due to Justice Scalia’s untimely death). Accordingly, whether the plaintiff states had standing to challenge DACA’s continued operation was a bigger issue than the legality of the program.

The district court’s standing analysis is extensive, but ultimately concludes that the plaintiff states may challenge the program, relying in part on the doctrine of “special solicitude” for state standing claims under Massachusetts v. EPA. Here, as with much of the Court’s analysis on the merits, the district court relies heavily upon controlling Fifth Circuit precedent from the DAPA litigation.

DEVELOPING . . . STILL UPDATING