DACA Halted - Deemed Illegal By Federal Judge
On Friday, Federal Judge Andrew Hanen of Texas ruled that DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival)—a program preventing hundreds of thousands of undocumented minors from deportation—is illegal and must be cease admitting new applicants.
The Federal ruling indicated the DHS may accept new applications, but is forbidden from accepting new recipients. The existing ~616,030 active DACA recipients can continue to work, and may remain in the country, as well as renew the program. According to AmericanProgress.org "Nearly 256,000 U.S.-born, and thus U.S.-citizen, children have at least one parent who is a DACA recipient. Across the country, 1.5 million individuals live with a DACA recipient."
Obama created the DACA as a 'temporary measure' in 2012, providing two years of “temporary citizenship” for undocumented immigrants who have entered the United States illegally before the age of 16, lived in the country continuously since [June] 2007, finished high school (or enlisted in the military), and have a clean criminal record.
This turned out to not be a temporary measure, nor was it a long term fix. According to the National Immigration Law Center, “DACA recipients, on average, arrived in the United States at the age of 7 and have lived here for 20 years. More than a third arrived before age 5. They are our classmates, our coworkers, and our friends. Most know no other country as home.”
Since then, the U.S.-Mexico Border has become increasingly overwhelmed with undocumented minors, arriving with non-family members—or even alone—hoping for similar government welfare, although they find themselves unable to apply for DACA. Instead there is no plan set in store for them, and soon has turned into the problem we are facing today.
The problem with short-term immigration solutions becomes more evident as the DHS stops groups of illegal immigrants, and separate the groups off children away from the adults they arrive with until they can be confirmed as family—and collect them into inhumane living conditions deemed "immigration facilities".
The Horrors Inside of the Texas "Immigration Facilities"
We currently have an overflow of undocumented immigrants legally bypassing immigration laws and entering our country, thanks to illegal immigration. Far more than we know what to do with. Hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied minors, now separated from their families, locked in detention facilities, and wrapped in 'tin foil'.
Texas Federal Judge said that the states have shown “the hardship that the continued operation of DACA has inflicted on them.”
Judge Andrew Hanen continued: “Furthermore, the government has no legitimate interest in the continuation of an illegally implemented program.”
This needs to stop, and ceasing new applicants to be accepted into DACA ceases operation of the evidently broken system that was put in place by an Executive Order that has plagued our country since.
America needs modern answers to immigration, that are voted upon and passed by a majority in Congress, not dictated by an Executive Order. The Biden Administration needs to rethink how it handles our U.S.-Mexico Border, immigration policies, loop holes, and potential long term disasters, which is something it has neglected since day one. Now that America is forced to address this dire immigration crisis, it is evident that DACA was never meant to be a permanent solution, and calls for a different approach. There is a reason the United States has immigration laws, and bypassing those laws—without legislation passing a vote in Congress—is anti-American, and as revealed through experience, dangerously inhumane.