The Biden administration is appealing a federal judge’s ruling deeming illegal an Obama-era program that has protected hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation, CNN reports.
The Justice Department filed the notice Friday in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Since 2012, he policy has protected from deportation more than 800,000 young immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally. Without it, the fate of thousands of the program’s beneficiaries, known as the Dreamers, is in the hands of Congress, the now-more-conservative U.S. Supreme Court, and the Biden administration.
The ruling still allows immigrants protected by the program to keep their status and allow Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) renewals while the case goes through the appeals process.
President Joe Biden in July vowed to appeal the decision by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, saying the ruling was ”deeply disappointing” and ”relegates hundreds of thousands of young immigrants to an uncertain future.”
He also called on Congress to move forward with legislation to permanently protect those covered by the program.
”I have repeatedly called on Congress to pass the American Dream and Promise Act, and I now renew that call with the greatest urgency,” he said. ”It is my fervent hope that through reconciliation or other means, Congress will finally provide security to all Dreamers, who have lived too long in fear.”
Texas and eight other states sued to halt DACA, arguing that President Barack Obama lacked the power to create the program because it circumvented Congress. Hanen agreed.
“This consideration, along with the Government’s assertion that it is ready and willing to try to remedy the legal defects of the DACA program, indicates that equity will not be served by a complete and immediate cessation of DACA,” he wrote in the July ruling.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
