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A federal court is again ruling against the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
A judge for the Southern District of Texas found President Barack Obama overstepped his authority in 2012 when, by executive order, he created the program meant to protect illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from deportation.
Judge Andrew S. Hanen says such a policy should have gone through Congress. Protections will stay in place for the more than half million people covered by the program, but no new applications will be allowed.
This marks the second time Hanen ruled against the program and is the latest in a yearslong legal back-and-forth over the policy. In 2021, he struck it down on similar grounds.
The Biden administration later tried to sidestep the decision by codifying DACA into a federal regulation, but this was challenged by nine Republican states.
Before that, President Donald Trump tried several times to end the program. The Biden White House says it’s “deeply disappointed” with the new ruling.