Attorney General Kwame Raoul is leading a coalition of 23 attorneys general in the fight to keep the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program afloat, against Texas' aggressive campaign to scrap it, officials said Thursday. Raoul, bolstering the cohort of legal minds from states nationwide has thrown their weight behind a recent amicus brief aimed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, a power move designed to counter the Texas-led lawsuit that has the potential to displace hundreds of thousands of Dreamers who've known America as home.
"DACA reflects our values as a nation and inspires young people brought to this country for a better life, to make invaluable contributions to our schools, workplaces, and communities," Raoul remarked, emphasizing the importance of the program which, since its inception in 2012, has seen over 825,000 young immigrants receive the DACA protections after completing applications and passing a background check which allowed them to blend into the fabric of society as students, professionals, and entrepreneurs, according to an official statement. The case in question is not new to the courts; in October 2022, the 5th Circuit backed the district court's ruling against the executive memorandum that established DACA, but it punted the case back to the lower courts to mull over a newly minted regulation that solidified the policy, but in September 2023, the district court hammered down again, deeming DACA illegal.
Raoul, alongside the assembled attorneys general, argue in unison that the DACA program isn't just a lawful exertion of Executive Branch muscle, but also a crucial lifeline for states and local governments that have grown to rely on the contributions of DACA recipients. They continue to poke holes in the district court's blanket invalidation of the program, arguing that a scalpel, not a sledgehammer, should be the tool of choice to sever any illegal parts if they indeed exist. They contend the decision was hasty, giving neither the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) nor Congress adequate time to put in place any corrective measures to align with the court's legal findings, the coalition detailed in the official brief.
This latest legal scrimmage, fueled by the actions of Attorney General Raoul and his cross-country band of legal counterparts, reflects a fervent resolve to protect the precarious perch upon which Dreamers sit, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin have come together in this legal storm, joining forces to press upon the courts the real-world implications of upending a program deeply enmeshed in the American societal quilt, as noted in their collaboration on the recent amicus brief.
