Federal Judge Andrew Hanen, who declared DACA illegal in 2021, again ruled against the program after a review of the new program launched by the Biden administration two years ago. For now, however, the ruling allows Dreamers protected from deportation to continue to renew their protection, but closes the door to those who have never registered before.
A federal judge in Texas ruled Wednesday that Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was “illegal” but allowed the program’s just over 600,000 beneficiaries to extend deportation protections and work authorization for another two years.
In the ruling, Judge Andrew Hanen of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas ruled that an attempt by the Joe Biden administration to codify the DACA policy in a federal regulation that took effect last year was “unlawful.”
In the 40-page ruling, Hanen wrote that when President Barack Obama created the program in 2012, he overstepped his authority by using his executive authority to create DACA. And that the new DACA 2021, created by the Biden administration and replacing the original, has no “material differences.” However, he added that the ruling does not require the government to “take any immigration, deportation or criminal prosecution against a DACA recipient.”
In 2021, in a similar ruling following a 2012 lawsuit against the original program, Hanen ruled that the benefit was also illegal, but as before, allowed beneficiaries to continue temporarily renewing their protections.
However, the ruling, as it does now, prohibits the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from processing registration requests from these individuals dreamer who had never enrolled in the program.
DACA was created by Obama in response to Congress’s inaction in passing immigration reform to protect approximately 1.2 million young people who entered the United States as children (before age 16), and are designated as such to protect them from deportation dreamer or dreamer
