Immigrants who grew up in the United States after being brought here illegally as children were among demonstrators outside a federal courthouse in New Orleans on Thursday as three appellate judges heard arguments over the Biden administration’s policy shielding them from deportation. At stake in the long legal battle playing out at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the future of about 535,000 people who have long-established lives in the U.S., even though they don’t hold citizenship or legal residency status and they live with the possibility of eventual deportation, the Associated Press reports. “I live here. I work here. I own a home here,” said Marea Rocha Carrillo, 37, who traveled from her home in New York to join the demonstration. She said she was brought to the U.S. at age 3 when family members immigrated from Mexico, where she was born. She could not get a teaching certificate until the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program allowed her to build a career in education.
Former President Barack Obama first put the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in place in 2012, citing inaction by Congress on legislation aimed at giving those brought to the U.S. as youngsters a path to legal status and citizenship. Years of litigation followed. President Joe Biden renewed the program in hopes of winning court approval. But in September 2023, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Houston said the executive branch had overstepped its authority in creating the program. Hanen barred the government from approving any new applications, but left the program intact for existing recipients, known as “Dreamers,” during appeals. Defenders of the policy argue that Congress has given the executive branch’s Department of Homeland Security authority to set immigration policy, and that the states challenging the program have no basis to sue. Texas is leading a group of Republican-dominated states challenging the policy. They and other challengers claim the states incur hundreds of millions of dollars in health care, education and other costs when immigrants are allowed to remain in the country illegally. The other states include Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kansas and Mississippi.
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