Immigrant advocacy groups addressed a federal appeals court in New Orleans on Wednesday, July 6, hoping to save the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which prevents deportation of thousands of people who arrived in the United States when they were a child.

Last year, the program was ruled illegal by a Texas federal judge, Andrew Hanen, in July 2021, though he agreed to leave the program intact for those already benefiting from it during the appeal period. In the decision, Hanen argued that then-President Barack Obama did not have the authority to create DACA, as it bypassed Congress.

As we describe in our analysis published in the Latino Observatory, “DACA is an ordinance of the U.S. federal government of that grants the children of undocumented immigrants the right to education, as well as prevents deportation and establishes a period of two years, which can be renewed, to obtain a work authorization document. The beneficiaries of the measure could not have committed serious crimes or misdemeanors that appeared in their police records, but it does not guarantee people the right to obtain citizenship. Therefore, it would be necessary to create specific legislation for this purpose”.

In the context of the program's 10th anniversary under constant challenges and threats, DACA proponents planned an early morning vigil ahead of arguments at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

According to the NBC News, “The U.S. Justice Department is defending the program, allied with the state of New Jersey, advocacy organizations such as the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund and a coalition of dozens of powerful corporations — including Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft — which argue that DACA recipients are “employees, consumers and job creators”.

The state of Texas is the leading plaintiff along with eight other Republican-leaning states against the program. According to NBC, Texas attorneys allege that DACA “imposes classic pocketbook injuries on the States through social services, healthcare, and education costs”, estimating that the state spends tens of millions of dollars on Medicaid services on those in the country illegally.

The disputing states further argue that the DACA was enacted without undergoing adequate legal and administrative procedures, including the necessary public notices and ordinance comment periods.

DACA proponents argue the state hasn’t proven that ending the program would decrease its costs. “They argue that DACA is a policy that falls within federal authorities’ power to decide how best to spend finite enforcement resources and that Texas diminished its claims of financial injury by waiting six years to challenge the program. They also argue the state ignores evidence that DACA recipients decrease Texas’ costs because many of them hold jobs with health insurance benefits and many own homes and pay property taxes that support schools”, according to NBC.

With the end of the program, beneficiaries can suffer serious damage and family destabilization as they must leave the only country that many of them know. According to a dossier presented by the defenders according to NBC, “they are parents of over a quarter-million U.S. citizens, and 70% of DACA recipients have an immediate family member who is a U.S. citizen”.