Thread: BREAKING: Tennessee AG Says He Won't Sue Federal Government Over DACA

Tennessee AG Says He Won't Sue Federal Government Over DACA

DACA Recipients Await Trump Decision on Program

AMANDA HAGGARD
SEP 1, 2017 2 PM

While a letter from 10 states' attorneys general sent to United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions indicates the threat of a lawsuit against the federal government if President Donald Trump doesn't end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery writes in a letter sent to U.S. Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker Friday that he doesn't want to sue over the program.


Slatery writes that "there is a human element" to ending DACA that cannot be ignored.


"As of the sending of this letter, the Administration has not agreed to rescind the June 15, 2012, DACA memorandum and order as requested by the coalition of States," Slatery writes. "At this time, our office has decided not to challenge DACA in the litigation, because we believe there is a better approach that we outline below."


Slatery goes on to write that rather than sue the federal government, he'd prefer Congress come up with a solution that addresses the issue when it comes back into session Sept. 5.
In the original letter, the attorneys general were threatening to sue, saying then-President Barack Obama didn't have the authority to enact DACA, and that Congress should have had final authority on whether to implement any program like it.

Trump has said he plans to make a decision about DACA — an Obama policy that allowed temporary relief and work permits to children of undocumented immigrants — before Monday, and recipients of the program in Tennessee are feeling left in the lurch.


Dulce Castro, an 18-year-old who's lived in Nashville since she was 6, says if Trump were to end the program, it could keep her from getting an education and contributing to society the way she's envisioned.

Castro is a freshman at Cumberland University. She's on track to earn a nursing degree on a full-ride scholarship to Cumberland, in a state where there's a federally recognized lacked of health care professionals.
Castro is one of the 8,300 Tennesseans who are recipients of DACA, which was founded in 2012.


In addition to Tennessee, nine other states — Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia — also pledged to sue the federal government over the program in the June letter.


"I'm not going to lie, I'm really scared," Castro says from the offices of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. "When I applied for DACA, I felt like I was doing the right thing and like it gave me the opportunity to make things better for my family, myself and for others."


Worst-case scenario, says Cesar Bautista, youth organizer for TIRRC and DACA recipient, Trump ends the program and launches into deportations for its recipients, 91 percent of whom are gainfully employed.

"Either way, Dreamers will continue to fight, and continue to educate our fellow Dreamers on our rights," says Bautista, 28. "DACA is not the end goal — a legal path to citizenship is the end goal. DACA was never intended to be that path, and we've been working to create one."


http://www.nashvillescene.com/news/p...ment-over-daca