Thread: Advocates Lose Bid To Toss Texas DACA Challenge

Advocates Lose Bid To Toss Texas DACA Challenge

Law360 (May 30, 2018, 7:16 PM EDT


A Texas federal judge on Wednesday rejected a bid by an immigration advocacy group that he toss a recently filed suit by Texas and six other states challenging the legality of the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program because a pending case in California is already reviewing the matter.

U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen entered a one-sentence order rejecting the motion to dismiss filed Tuesday by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which asserted that because the case in the Northern District of California was filed first, the instant case should either be tossed, be put on ice or transferred to the Golden State.

MALDEF asserted Tuesday that Judge Hanen should take one of the actions because U.S. District Judge William Alsup has already entered a preliminary injunction barring the government from dissolving DACA, because the states in the instant case filed an amicus brief in the California case, and because the other litigation commenced eight months before the instant case did, according to its motion.

“Plaintiffs’ participation in the California case as amici curiae further demonstrates the centrality of the question of DACA’s legality in the California proceeding,” MALDEF’s motion reads. “Plaintiffs now seek to litigate the legality of DACA in this case, approximately five months after Judge Alsup issued his preliminary injunction.”

Judge Hanen’s rejection of MALDEF’s motion was part of a broader order that also set several deadlines in the case, including deadlines of June 8 for the federal government to respond to the states’ preliminary injunction bid, June 15 for experts to be disclosed and June 29 for discovery to be complete, according to Wednesday’s filing.

Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia initiated the instant case on May 1, asserting that the policy merits of immigration laws must be handled by Congress and that then-President Barack Obama was out of line in launching the program in 2012, according to the complaint.

DACA provides deportation relief and work permits to unauthorized immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. The program has benefited almost 800,000 immigrants, according to recent government statistics.

The Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments on May 15 in the case involving Judge Alsup’s order, with both sides focusing on the government’s assertion that the initial implementation of the program was unlawful.

The federal government claimed that it exercised its prosecutorial discretion to roll back the program after finding that it was likely unlawful and posed significant risk of legal challenges. The plaintiffs in the case — including the state of California, the University of California and individual DACA recipients — countered that the government’s conclusion about the legality of the program was incorrect and that it is up to the courts to review.

Counsel for the parties could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

MALDEF is represented in-house by Nina Perales, Celina Moreno, Jack Salmon and Alejandra Avila and by Carlos Moctezuma Garcia of Garcia & Garcia Attorneys At Law PLLC.

The states are represented by their respective attorneys general and Brantley Starr, James E. Davis, Todd Lawrence Disher and Adam Arthur Biggs of the Texas Office of Attorney General.

The federal government is represented by Chad A. Readler, Brett A. Shumate, William C. Peachey and Jeffrey S. Robins of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The case is State of Texas et al. v. Nielsen et al., case number 1:18-cv-00068, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

https://www.law360.com/immigration/a...daca-challenge

DACA IS ILLEGAL!

THEY ALL MUST GO!

STOP REWARDING CRIMINAL TRESPASSING ILLEGAL ALIENS

AND NO ASYLUM FOR ANYBODY!