By Daily News Editorial Board | New York Daily News | JUN. 3, 2023 | Photo by J. Scott Applewhite
A decade-plus of uncertainty continues as Texas Federal Judge Andrew Hanen heard oral arguments this week in a Texas-led, nine-state coalition seeking to overturn the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that grants work authorization and protection from deportation to more than 600,000 people brought to the country illegally as children.
The states’ arguments about cost ridiculously presuppose that DACA is entirely a financial drain due to increased services. They don’t mention that DACA holders are paying for those services with their taxes and other contributions; in fact, DACA recipients almost uniformly overpay on taxes considering they’re ineligible for many of the benefits the taxes are going to.
Let’s be clear that this doesn’t mean states like Texas should toss new asylum seekers to the wolves just because they’re not as economically productive yet, but they certainly can’t credibly make such a claim for DACA recipients that work in every imaginable place and often are employers themselves. The states’ other plank, that DACA was issued arbitrarily and without proper administrative process, should be neutralized by the Biden administration’s new DACA rule, which went through months of public notice and comment before being promulgated.
That’s unlikely to sway Hanen, who was the judge who originally killed the similar Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) and a concurrent DACA expansion with a nationwide injunction in 2015, and ruled DACA as a whole unlawful two years ago, before the new rule was issued. Even the plaintiff states understand the potentially dire economic consequences of what they seek, asking the judge for an “orderly wind down” as opposed to stark termination.
In 2021, Hanen, recognizing widespread reliance on DACA by not only recipients but their whole communities, struck it down but allowed existing recipients to keep renewing their status, which begs the question: why do this? With even opponents fearful of what happens if DACA goes away, and broad support from the American public, the next development should be a path to citizenship, not another ax hanging over their heads.
