AG Paxton: Federal court rules DACA program is illegal

SAN ANTONIO (KTSA News) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is announcing a federal court decision that declares the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program unlawful.

The New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit made the decision after the policy was challenged by a coalition led by Paxton.

The policy championed by former President Barack Obama allows illegal aliens the ability to stay in the United States without citizenship or a visa while also gaining lawful employment, Social Security and Medicare.

“Only Congress has the ability to write our nation’s immigration laws, and I applaud the Fifth Circuit for affirming DACA as the unlawful executive action that it is,” said Attorney General Paxton. “The chaos at our southern border is bringing violence to our communities and costing Texans hundreds of millions of dollars. President Obama’s refusal to enforce immigration law was an offensive dereliction of duty then, just as President Biden’s refusal to help secure our border is now.”

The Fifth Circuit’s ruling came after a district court previously recognized the unlawful nature of DACA, and it affirms the lower court’s ruling that the Obama Administration unlawfully created the policy in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

The court factored in the illustrated costs DACA has brought to Texans in recognizing the state’s legal standing to bring the case: “Texas has satisfied the first standing requirement by demonstrating injury in fact . . . . Texas presented evidence that it spends millions of dollars providing these services to unauthorized aliens each year . . . . An expert for defendants estimated that DACA recipients overall impose a cost of more than $250,000,000 on Texas per year and another $533,000,000 annually in costs to local Texas communities.” 

You can read the court’s full ruling by clicking here.