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Attorney generals from 15 states and the District of Columbia – all Democrats -- filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to stop the Trump administration’s plans to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced plans to end DACA, through which about 800,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children have obtained the right to legally work and protection against deportation.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, alleges that the revocation of DACA is motivated by anti-Mexican bias and that that it violates due process rights. The attorney generals allege that the revocation of DACA will damage their state economies by reducing the tax base and disrupting companies that employ DACA recipients, and that it will harm state institutions, including public colleges and universities that enroll students with DACA status.
“It’s clear that President Trump’s DACA repeal would cause huge economic harm to New York – and that it’s driven by President Trump’s personal anti-Mexican bias,” said New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, who is leading the lawsuit along with the attorney generals from Massachusetts and Washington State.
President Obama created the DACA program in 2012. In announcing plans to phase DACA out on Tuesday, the Trump administration accused Obama of having overstepped the bounds of his executive power to circumvent the will of Congress.
"While the plaintiffs in today's lawsuits may believe that an arbitrary circumvention of Congress is lawful, the Department of Justice looks forward to defending this administration's position,” a spokesman for the department, Devin O'Malley, told CNN.
