Texas Will Drop Lawsuit Against DACA after Trump Moves to Shutter Program

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, left, and Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller, right,
AP File Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will drop a nine-state coalition lawsuit against Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) after the Trump Administration announced it will phase out and ultimately end the program.

In a statement, Paxton praised Trump’s decision to end DACA, saying he would be halting a lawsuit that threatened legal action against the administration, had it not made a decision to end the program after September 5.

“I applaud President Trump for phasing out DACA,” Paxton said. “As the Texas-led coalition explained in our June letter, the Obama-era program went far beyond the executive branch’s legitimate authority.”

“Had former President Obama’s unilateral order on DACA been left intact, it would have set a dangerous precedent by giving the executive branch sweeping authority to bypass Congress and change immigration laws,” Paxton continued. “If ever there were a violation of the President’s duty to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,’ DACA was it: President Obama unilaterally conferred lawful presence and work authorization, and then President Obama used that lawful-presence dispensation to unilaterally confer U.S. citizenship.”

Paxton and other officials from 10 states were hit with major pushback efforts by the open borders lobby to drop their lawsuit against DACA. Paxton refused to do so, Breitbart Texas reported.

In late June, Breitbart Texas reported that a 10-state coalition led by the Texas attorney general sent a letter to the Trump Administration asking the Secretary of Homeland Security to phase out the DACA program. The states threatened to sue if the federal government did not end the program.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said during his announcement on Tuesday that the action by the Obama administration in creating the mass amnesty plan was unconstitutional because it violated the Separation of Powers Doctrine.

The prior presidential administration granted temporary legal status and the right to work to millions of young people brought to the United States illegally by their parents.

Texas has a track record of taking on presumed abuses of federal power. When former President Obama sought to grant lawful presence to more than four million unlawfully present aliens, Attorney General Paxton led a 26-state coalition to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the plan, known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA).

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTXGab, and Facebook.

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