Immigrants brought to US as children are asking judges protection against deportation

Susana Lujano, left, joins other activists to rally in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as DACA, at the Capitol in Washington, June 15, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Immigrants who grew up in the United States after being brought here illegally as children will be among demonstrators outside a federal courthouse in New Orleans on Thursday as three appellate judges hear arguments over the Biden administration’s policy shielding them from deportation.

At stake in the long legal battle playing out at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the future of about 535,000 people who have long-established lives in the U.S., even though they don’t hold citizenship or legal residency status and they live with the possibility of eventual deportation.

“No matter what is said and done, I choose the U.S. and I have the responsibility to make it a better place for all of us,” Greisa Martinez Rosas, said Wednesday.

She is a beneficiary of the policy and a leader of the advocacy group United We Dream. She plans to travel from Arizona to attend a rally near the court, where hundreds of the policy’s supporters are expected to gather.

Demonstrators hold up signs outside the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals building in New Orleans on July 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Kevin McGill, file)

The panel hearing arguments won’t rule immediately. Whatever they decide, the case will almost certainly wind up at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Former President Barack Obama first put the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in place in 2012, citing inaction by Congress on legislation aimed at giving those brought to the U.S. as youngsters a path to legal status and citizenship. Years of litigation followed. President Joe Biden renewed the program in hopes of winning court approval.

But in September 2023, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Houston said the executive branch had overstepped its authority in creating the program. Hanen barred the government from approving any new immigrants applications, but left the program intact for existing recipients, known as “Dreamers,” during appeals.

Defenders of the policy argue that Congress has given the executive branch’s Department of Homeland Security authority to set immigration policy, and that the states challenging the program have no basis to sue.

“They cannot identify any harms flowing from DACA,” Nina Perales, vice president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said in a news conference this week.

Texas is leading a group of Republican-dominated states challenging the policy. The Texas Attorney General’s Office did not respond to an emailed interview request.

But in briefs, they and other challengers claim the states incur hundreds of millions of dollars in health care, education and other costs when immigrants are allowed to remain in the country illegally. The other states include Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kansas and Mississippi.

Among those states’ allies in court briefs is the Immigration Reform Law Institute. “Congress has repeatedly refused to legalize DACA recipients, and no administration can take that step in its place,” the group’s executive director, Dale L. Wilcox, said in a statement earlier this year.

The panel hearing the case consists of judges Jerry Smith, nominated to the 5th Circuit by former President Ronald Reagan; Edith Brown Clement, nominated by former President George W. Bush; and Stephen Higginson, nominated by Obama.