Appeals Court Rules Obama-Era Immigration Program Is Unlawful

But the judges stayed their ruling and for now, hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients will continue to have protection from deportation.

A federal appeals court on Friday ruled against an Obama-era program that has shielded hundreds of thousands of undocumented people from deportation. But in its decision on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, the three-judge panel stopped short of allowing current beneficiaries to be deported and said it was staying its decision to allow the ruling to be appealed.

The opinion, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, is the latest legal turn in a long-running fight over the fate of DACA, and it comes just three days before the inauguration of President-elect Donald J. Trump, who sought to end the program during his first term.

A federal district court in Texas had ruled in 2021 that DACA was unlawful, and that decision was upheld in part by the Fifth Circuit in its decision on Friday. But the appeals court ruled that an injunction ordered by the lower court for the entire country should instead be limited to Texas, and that current DACA recipients could continue to renew their status nationwide.

“Because Texas is the only plaintiff that has demonstrated or even attempted to demonstrate an actual injury, and because that injury is fully redressable by a geographically limited injunction, we narrow the scope of the injunction to Texas,” the ruling said.

The appeals court stayed its ruling, and, therefore, no current beneficiary of DACA is immediately vulnerable to deportation from the country. They will also be able to continue working in the country legally, at least for the time being, and likely until an appeals process runs its course.

Currently, about 540,000 people are enrolled in the program.