Texas AG, Others Demand Trump Phase Out DACA
Texas AG, Others Demand Trump Phase Out DACA
http://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/t...&o=t&l=f&f=png NBC News 30 mins ago Suzanne Gamboa
http://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/t...f&x=1169&y=527© Jose Montes attends an event on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA and Deferred Action for...Jose Montes
Attorneys general from 10 states and Idaho's governor are threatening to sue the Trump administration if it does not stop granting or renewing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA, by Sept. 5.
They made the threat in a letter sent to Attorney General Jeff Sessions Wednesday. It was signed by attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho Louisiana, Kansas, Nebraska, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter also signed.
The attorneys general said if new DACA permits and renewals were ended by the deadline, they'd dismiss their lawsuit challenging programs former President Barack Obama tried to create with a 2015 executive action. The programs would have allowed millions more immigrants illegally here eligible to remain and to work.
"If by September 5, 2017, the Executive Branch agrees to ... not renew or issue any DACA or expanded DACA permits in the future, the the plaintiffs ... will voluntarily dismiss their lawsuit currently pending in the Southern District of Texas. Otherwise the complaint in that case will be amended to challenge both the DACA program and the remaining expanded DACA permits," the letter states.
But, Texas and 25 other states challenged Obama's executive action in a lawsuit against the federal government and court action kept them from going into effect. A trial on the constitutionality of Obama's action had not been held.
When Obama's term ended and President Donald Trump took over, the Trump administration became the defendant in the lawsuit. The administration said it would no longer defend the programs and rescinded a memo instituting them on June 15 because Trump did not support Obama's 2015 executive action.
Texas and the other state officials that signed the letter are refusing to follow suit and drop the challenge. State officials from several of the states in the lawsuit did not sign the letter.
Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said the organization "condemns in the strongest terms each of the state officials who joined in threatening the federal administration to repeal DACA."
He referred to their actions as "xenophobia" and "mean-spirited stupidity" and said the state officials who signed the letter have "etched their names in ignominy."
"MALDEF urges the president not to cave in to the toothless threat in today's Texas letter. Presidential authority does constitutionally extend to protecting DACA recipients, whom the president has repeatedly declared worthy of protection. We urge the president to fight to vindicate that authority," Saenz said.
Saenz said MALDEF, which intervened in the case, will move to dismiss it.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/tex...aca/ar-BBDt3JO
South Carolina could sue if Trump doesn't end Obama-era program protecting undocument
South Carolina could sue if Trump doesn't end Obama-era program protecting undocumented immigrants
By Emma Dumain
Jun 30, 2017 Updated 1 hr ago
WASHINGTON — South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster enjoys a good relationship with Donald Trump, but the state's top legal officer is threatening to sue the administration over a campaign promise yet to be fulfilled.
Late Thursday, alongside officials representing 10 other states, S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson sent U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions a letter cautioning legal action if Trump does not rescind President Barack Obama's 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Also known as DACA, that executive order currently grants stays of deportation to certain undocumented immigrants brought illegally into the country by their parents. Trump campaigned on the promise to reduce illegal immigration, including by targeting DACA beneficiaries.
"The previous administration unilaterally rewrote federal law through its DACA executive order. Our Constitution requires that only Congress, not the executive branch, make the law," Wilson said in a statement to The Post and Courier on Friday. "I support the protection of any children adversely affected, but those protections must be legislated by Congress. We cannot pick and choose when and when not to enforce the Constitution.
"The intent of the letter is to give Congress and this administration the opportunity to constitutionally alleviate the hardships imposed on these children," he added.
Wilson and the other co-signers are giving the administration until Sept. 5 to overturn the 2012 order.
McMaster, who was the first highest-ranking elected official to endorse Trump during the campaign, was not involved in Wilson's decision to sign the letter, which puts a direct onus on the president. South Carolina law does not even require the two offices to coordinate on such matters.
But according to the governor's office, McMaster "is confident that President Trump will work to fulfill each of the commitments he made during the campaign, and will welcome his decision to do so in this case when the time comes."
There are currently 6,700 DACA beneficiaries in South Carolina, compared with the nearly 800,000 recipients nationally. Though it's not a huge number, it ranks smack dab in the middle of DACA recipients per state.
The argument that Congress, not the White House, ought to set immigration policy is nothing new, even among Republicans who support the principles of DACA, like U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham. Earlier this year, Graham introduced bipartisan legislation designed to replace the DACA program in the event Trump opted to overturn it.
But Congress has tried — and failed — for years to advance legislation to provide legal status for non-violent, undocumented immigrants. The deadline for Trump to rescind DACA also falls right after lawmakers are due to return for a month-long recess, and big-ticket items like health care and tax reform loom large.
There's even a threat of a government shutdown at the end of September if Democrats don't agree to fund Trump's request to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico boarder.
Though the letter to Sessions stresses that revoking the DACA program would not result in the immediate deportation of the initiative's beneficiaries, for students in South Carolina it could have some immediate consequences.
Benjamin Roth, assistant professor at the University of South Carolina's College of Social Work, said students enrolled in the state's public universities and community colleges could be forced to withdraw almost instantaneously, thanks to a 2008 law forbidding undocumented immigrants from benefiting from the state public higher education system.
In an interview with The Post and Courier on Friday, Wilson said he would be "open to a discussion that allows (the administration and Congress) more time" to come up with a fix so revoking DACA would not leave anyone in the lurch.
Acknowledging that he signed the letter in an effort to be consistent with a position he's held for years — that the executive order on DACA represented constitutional overreach — he called the program's enactment "the wrong way to do the right thing."
http://www.postandcourier.com/politi...0c9fdcc94.html