A federal appeals court on Wednesday sent a case challenging the legality of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA — a national program that provides some undocumented immigrants work permits and temporarily protects them from deportation — back to a lower court in Texas.
A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in its ruling that it agreed with the lower court that the implementation of DACA in 2012 was illegal — but it will keep the program in place while the lower court analyzes the latest rule the Biden administration implemented in an effort to save the program from future legal challenges.
Anticipating a loss in the appeals court, the Biden administration in August codified DACA into regulatory law and rescinded the 2012 memo by then-U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano that originally created DACA. The legal move was aimed at countering the July 2021 lower court ruling by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen of Houston, who said the Obama administration had illegally implemented DACA.
