DACA Fans Say Texas Suing U.S. Leaves No One Defending Program
DACA Fans Say Texas Suing U.S. Leaves No One Defending Program
(Bloomberg) -- A civil rights group wants to defend against a lawsuit by Texas to undo the Obama-era Dreamers immigration program, saying U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is the wrong guy for the job because he’s hostile to the policy.
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund asked a federal judge in Brownsville, Texas, Tuesday to let it fight on behalf undocumented immigrants to preserve the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protects them from deportation.
That’s the best way to ensure that DACA is vigorously defended, said Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF president and general counsel.
“Texas and the Trump administration share the same erroneous and uninformed view of the law with respect to DACA,” Saenz said in a statement.
Sessions has argued that DACA is unconstitutional to three other judges who have blocked the Trump administration from phasing out the 2012 initiative.
The judge hearing the case brought by Texas and six other Republican-led states previously blocked Obama’s plan to defer deportation for 4 million undocumented immigrants in a program called DAPA, or Deferred Action for Parents of Americans.
To contact the reporter on this story: Peter Blumberg in San Francisco at pblumberg1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Wollman at ewollman@bloomberg.net, Peter Blumberg, Paul Cox
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