4 LA 'Dreamers' Sue Trump Administration For DACA 'Broken Promise'

LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CA – A Pasadena doctoral candidate, two Los Angeles school teachers and a UC Irvine law student were among six people who sued the Trump administration Monday over the decision to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

The DACA program, created in 2012 under President Barack Obama, has allowed nearly 800,000 young people who were brought to the country illegally as children to live, work and study in the United States.

The Trump administration has announced plans to phase out the program, but has given Congress six months to come up with a solution for people who fall under the auspices of DACA.

In the federal lawsuit filed early Monday in San Francisco, six so- called "Dreamers" -- the term generally used to describe DACA recipients -- contend that rescinding the program is "an unprecedented violation of the constitutional rights of plaintiffs and other young people who relied on the federal government to honor that promise."

Although the state of California and the University of California have filed suits over the proposed rescission of DACA, the latest suit is believed to be the first filed by actual DACA recipients.

Among the plaintiffs are:

-- Viridiana Chabolla Mendoza, a Pomona College graduate and first-year UCI law student who was brought to the country when she was 2;

-- Norma Ramirez, who was brought to the country when she was 5 and is a doctoral candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena;

-- Miriam Gonzalez Avila, who was brought to the U.S. at age 6 and is a teacher a Crown Preparatory Academy, a UCLA graduate and a master's degree candidate at Loyola Marymount University;

-- Saul Jimenez Suarez, a Los Angeles special education teacher who was brought to the U.S. at age 1.

The lawsuit argues that the decision to end the program represents a bait-and-switch by the government, which first encouraged Dreamers to come forward and identify themselves as living in the country illegally, and then withdrawing the protection they were offered from deportation.

"These young people were able to attend college, open businesses and give back to their communities because they trusted the government to honor its promises and live up to its word," said plaintiffs' Los Angeles-based attorney Ted Boutrous. "In suddenly and arbitrarily breaking those promises, the government is in direct violation of the Due Process Clause and federal law."

RELATED:

• UC System Sues Trump Administration For 'Whim-Based' Decision To End DACA

• 'Cruel,' 'Heartless' DACA Repeal By Trump White House Angers Angelenos

--City News Service/File photo by Matt York/Associated Press