Appeals court again declares DACA illegal, but upholds immigration policy

Washington – A federal appeals court on Friday declared immigration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy unlawful, casting a cloud of uncertainty over more than half a million illegal immigrants who arrived as children before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration USA were brought.

A panel of judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that found a Biden administration rule codifying DACA violated U.S. immigration law. The Obama administration’s 2012 memo that originally drafted the policy was also found unlawful by federal courts.

However, Friday’s ruling will not immediately change the status quo. By suspending the order, the jury kept DACA alive for current recipients and closed to new applicants because the program has been running for several years.

For more than 12 years, DACA has enabled hundreds of thousands of immigrants who entered the United States illegally or overstayed their visas as minors to live and work in the United States without fear of deportation. They are known colloquially as “Dreamers,” a nickname that dates back to the Dream Act, a bipartisan effort to legalize them that Congress considered but failed to pass for more than two decades.

While it upheld the lower court’s order invalidating the Biden administration’s DACA order, the 5th Circuit panel limited the ruling’s impact and made it applicable only in Texas, the state that governed the Republican-led filed a lawsuit against the program. The panel paused its decision regarding current DACA beneficiaries and awaited another decision from the 5th Circuit or the Supreme Court, allowing renewals to proceed.

The panel also ruled that the deportation deferrals offered by DACA could be legally separated from the work permits that beneficiaries receive, handing the Biden administration a partial victory in its argument that deportation protections should remain intact if the work permit provision is repealed becomes.

According to US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency overseeing the initiative, around 538,000 immigrants were enrolled in DACA as of the end of September 2024. To qualify for the policy, applicants had to prove that they had arrived in the United States by their 16th birthday and before June 2007. Graduated from an American high school or enrolled in the military; and there were no serious criminal convictions.

Friday’s ruling could pave the way for the U.S. Supreme Court to finally resolve the years-long legal battle over DACA. However, it is unclear how the new Trump administration will handle the case and whether it will seek to end the program. While President Biden’s Justice Department vigorously defended DACA in court, the first Trump administration sought to phase out the policy, saying it was unlawful. The Supreme Court in 2020 prevented the termination of DACA for technical reasons.

The Justice Department declined to comment on Friday’s court order.

The Trump transition team did not immediately say how the new administration would approach DACA. Trump and his advisers have promised to launch a comprehensive crackdown on illegal and legal immigration. They vowed to oversee mass deportations of people living in the U.S. illegally, impose stricter border controls and cut legal admissions for immigrants and refugees.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called the 5th Circuit’s ruling “a victory for Texas.”

“I look forward to working with President-elect Donald Trump to ensure the rule of law is restored and the illegal immigration crisis is finally stopped,” Paxton said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Greisa Martinez Rosas, executive director of United We Dream, a progressive group that advocates for DACA beneficiaries, condemned the court order as an “attack” on “immigrant youth.”