Dreamer youth may have believed they could relax a little more under the DACA program. DACA was created to offer immigrant children a pathway to citizenship, though they entered the U.S. illegally as children and lived here.
Immigration lawyers defend their clients against removal from the country if they entered illegally. After the DACA program was created in 2012, these children and youth, who were brought to the U.S. with their parents, received some protections that meant they could stay in the U.S. as long as they met certain conditions.
DACA may have also been used as a defense against removal and deportation from the U.S. Dreamers who were complying with the new program. They believed they had the freedom to stay and become citizens.
Dreamer youth had the DACA program behind them
DACA provided temporary protections to Dreamer youth, allowing them to obtain work permits. The program also granted case-by-case permission to the youth to leave the U.S. temporarily. Once they were ready to return to the U.S., DACA allowed them to come back over the U.S.-Mexico border.
What the new ruling says
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen wrote that DACA had two issues. He said it was incorrectly enacted. A federal law guides the executive branch in issuing new policies. Hanen also ruled that former President Obama was not authorized to unilaterally give mass reprieves to immigrants who had arrived illegally in the U.S. He specified that the correct place for DACA was in Congress.
Several Republican-led states challenged the legality of DACA in 2017, stating that their basis for this challenge was presidential overreach. While DACA recipients may still continue their DACA renewals, new applicants may not receive DACA grants.