By Ariana Figueroa | AZ Mirror
A panel of three federal judges Friday upheld a lower court’s decision to strike down the legality of a program that has shielded more than half a million people from deportation who entered the United States as children, but the judges are keeping the program in place ahead of a likely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
It’s unclear how President-elect Donald Trump, who will be sworn in for a second term on Monday, will handle the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. For now, the DACA program will remain, and renewals will continue, according to the ruling.
“Relying on this court’s previous decision, the district court found that Texas still has standing to challenge DACA and held that the Final Rule is substantively unlawful,” according to the ruling. “The court accordingly vacated the Rule, entered a nationwide injunction, and preserved the stay.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that the Biden administration’s regulation to codify DACA violates the Immigration and Nationality Act because that act lists out which immigrants are granted legal status and DACA recipients are not included in that.
