5th Circuit rules DACA is unlawful, but limits its ruling to Texas

A federal appeals court Friday upheld a lower court ruling that found protections for so-called Dreamers to be unlawful, suspending the program in Texas while otherwise limiting its ruling in the event of an appeal.

The ruling upholds a lower court ruling that found Biden administration efforts to codify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program violated immigration law.

The ruling leaves more than half a million DACA recipients in another period of uncertainty.

While the Biden administration would ordinarily appeal the decision, possibly launching the case before the Supreme Court, it’s not clear how the incoming Trump administration will proceed.

“The [Immigration and Nationality Act] ‘expressly and carefully provides legal designations allowing defined classes of aliens to be lawfully present.’ In the INA, Congress enacted a ‘comprehensive federal statutory scheme for regulation of immigration and naturalization’ and ‘set the terms and conditions of admission to the country,’” the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in its decision.

“Because it chose not to include DACA recipients in that comprehensive scheme, ‘Congress’s rigorous classification scheme forecloses the contrary scheme in the DACA Memorandum.’”

The ruling largely upholds an earlier decision from U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen.

Hanen had found that the coalition of states led by Texas had standing and ruled in September 2023 against the Biden administration’s revamp of DACA as a memorandum replacing Obama’s 2012 executive order.

The Friday ruling also created another complex dynamic in the case. The suspension of DACA is only applicable in Texas, but other Dreamers are protected while the case proceeds.

And the court also found that work authorizations could be legally separated from the protection from deportations provided by DACA, remanding that issue back to the lower court.

Hanen has ruled against DACA multiple times.

In 2015, Hanen ruled against an expansion of DACA and a partner program Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, and in 2021 he ruled that DACA itself was unlawful.

That 2021 ruling was bounced back to Hanen after the Biden administration’s memorandum, which Hanen ruled illegal, maintaining an injunction that allows current DACA beneficiaries to remain in status while the courts process the issue.

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