Thousands of DACA recipients fear recent ruling by federal judge
MIAMI - Just when Edwin Herrera and his wife bought the house of their dream, he started relieving a nightmare, "The state of uncertainty my life potentially has," said 30-year-old Herrera a DACA recipient since 2012.
He says he fears the recent ruling by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen of Texas, who declared for the second time the immigration program unlawful.
While Hanen declared illegal a revised version of a federal policy that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, he declined to order an immediate end to the program and the protections it offers to recipients.
Hanen agreed with Texas and eight other states suing to stop the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.
"While sympathetic to the predicament of DACA recipients and their families, this Court has expressed its concerns about the legality of the program for some time," Hanen wrote in his 40-page ruling.
"I have been a DACA recipient since 2012," said Lorena Jofre, the daughter of Chilean parents. She and Herrera were brought to the United States as children through no choice of their own, which is generally the case of the Dreamers – as they are known. They either overstayed their visas or entered the country without papers, Herrera came from Honduras at the age of seven.
Hanen's order extended the current injunction that had been in place against DACA, which barred the government from approving any new applications but left the program intact for existing recipients during the ongoing legal review.
"Whether he says that, what are the intentions of still doing this, to go after pursuing people who are again still working," responds immediately Herrera.
"I think they have the right to be uncertain," said Willie Allen, a South Florida immigration attorney with hundreds of cases of DACA recipients.
"Right now they are allowed to remain by the will of a judge," said Allen reiterating that DACA is not a legal path to U.S. residency or a solid status, it's the result of an executive order by the Obama Administration created in 2012 to protect from deportation children of undocumented immigrants who were brought to this country as minors.
"DACA simply allowed these young men and woman who grew up in grew up here to have work permits, driver's license and have their everyday life in a normal fashion," said Allen.
As part of its larger crackdown on illegal and legal immigration, the Trump Administration moved to terminate DACA in the fall of 2017, it did not happen but Allen says another republican administration could do the same and get in wiped out.
In 2021, Hanen had declared the program illegal, ruling it had not been subject to public notice and comment periods required under the federal Administrative Procedures Act.
The Biden administration tried to satisfy Hanen's concerns with a new version of DACA that took effect in October 2022 and was subject to public comments as part of a formal rule-making process.
But Hanen, who was appointed by then-President George W. Bush in 2002, ruled the updated version of DACA was still illegal as the Biden administration's new version was essentially the same as the old version.
Edwin Herrera says the U.S. and specifically South Florida is the only place he considers home, "I studied architecture and work for an architecture firm, that is my passion that is what I love to do, I am a citizen in good standing" said Herrera next to his U.S. born wife.
"We are just regular citizens, we don't have any criminal record, we are contributing to society," said Lorena Jofre who is an accountant at a Commercial Insurance Agency.
Hanen's ruling was ultimately expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, sending the program's fate before the high court for a third time.