CNN —
A federal appeals court is unlikely to completely overturn a judge’s ruling ending the immigration program known as DACA, which protects undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as minors.
But at a hearing Thursday in New Orleans, judges on the conservative U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals asked questions that suggested they were open to keeping parts of the program in place.
The hearing is the latest episode in a six-year legal battle over the Childhood Arrivals Deferred Action Program, first introduced in 2012 under the Obama administration.
Texas (along with eight other states) argues that the program harms states through public health and education costs paid to DACA recipients, and that if the program ends, noncitizens will seek self-imposed asylum. He claims to be deaf. Currently, more than 500,000 immigrants are enrolled in DACA.
But a New Jersey lawyer who intervened with the Biden administration to defend the program said in court that hundreds of thousands of other people, including U.S. citizen children of DACA recipients, depend on their parents’ income for their livelihoods. Even people claimed to be dependent on the program’s existence. Ability to earn income through program work permits.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, an appointee of President George W. The court suspended the ruling and maintained the status quo, as it also applied to the ruling.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said in a statement after the hearing that the court “accepted” their arguments, adding: DACA in its entirety will exist forever. ”
The Biden administration has argued that Texas doesn’t have standing to sue in the first place. During the hearing, Fifth Circuit Judge Jerry Smith, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, told Justice Department prosecutor Brian Boynton that he did not intend to argue the case significantly during standing arguments.
But Smith seemed interested in the Justice Department’s arguments regarding the so-called separation clause in the final DACA regulations introduced under President Joe Biden. A severability clause means that if a court decides that part of a regulation or law is illegal, that part can be severed and the rest of the policy can remain intact.
At one point, Smith called the provision “important” and hinted at a possible ruling that would preserve DACA’s shield from deportation for these recipients by simply revoking benefits such as work permits.
The court’s other Republican appointee, Judge Edith Brown Clement, appointed by President George W. Bush, reiterated the national scope of the trial judge’s decision in her few comments during the hearing. Mentioned.
In the course of litigation over DACA, the Supreme Court has suggested in several other cases that lower courts should be wary of issuing nationwide injunctions.
This story has been updated with additional details.
