Texas AG Leads 10-State Coalition Urging Trump To End Protections For Childhood Arrivals

AUSTIN, TX — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday led a coalition of ten states urging the Trump administration to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) that provides temporary protection from deportation to undocumented immigrants who were brought into the U.S. as children.

Even amid growing anti-immigrant sentiment nationwide, DACA had long been seen as untouchable given that it involves people who arrived into the U.S. as children who know no other home. Even Trump—whose presidential campaign was largely predicated on cracking down on illegal immigration—has expressed a willingness to keep the program intact even while urging federal immigration officials to root out undocumented immigrants nationwide.

That concession as it relates to children now appears to be eroding given Paxton's latest action.

“We respectfully request that the Secretary of Homeland Security phase out the DACA program,” Paxton wrote in a letter to Trump signed by nine other attorneys general. “Just like DAPA, DACA unilaterally confers eligibility for work authorization and lawful presence without any statutory authorization from Congress.”

The DAPA allusion is a reference to the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, sometimes called Deferred Action for Parental Accountability. It was signed by President Obama as part of an executive action to stave off deportation of undocumented immigrants with three-year renewable work permits before it was rescinded by Trump on June 15.

Texas was joined in calling for the DACA dismantling by his attorneys general counterparts in Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Tennessee, Idaho and West Virginia along with Idaho Gov. C.L. Otter.

To view a copy of the letter, click here.

Paxton has long sought to block Obama-era efforts toward comprehensive immigration policy, leading a 26-state coalition in 2014 that succeeded in putting DAPA on hold while it meandered through the courts. Eventually, Paxton declared victory when Obama's immigration policies via executive action were blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Outcry to Paxton's move was swift and strident. Michelle Tremillo, executive director of the Texas Organizing Project, described the attorney general's actions to end the threat of deportation for hundreds of thousands of children as a measure steeped in cruelty.

“The level of cruelty exhibited today by Attorney General Ken Paxton and nine other Republican attorney generals is astonishing," Tremillo said in a prepared statement sent to Patch. "DACA has allowed so many young people to finally realize their professional and personal dreams, and in doing so have made our state and country better."

Tremillo described meeting a woman at a recent San Antonio rally against the anti-immigrant Senate Bill 4 in San Antonio in an encounter that exemplified the ideals of DACA.

“Earlier this week, I stood by one of our undocumented members at the SB4 rally in San Antonio as she spoke proudly of her daughter, who because of DACA, is now a teacher," Tremillo said. "I also know of DACA recipients who are nurses, organizers and social workers. Because of DACA, they’re also able to contribute to our economy by buying cars and homes, and paying income and property taxes."

She views Paxton's move as a political calculation to stem the tide of a growing progressive constituency base: "Unfortunately, this very cruel act makes sense when seen through the eyes of extreme right-wingers who feel threatened by a rising tide of political activism from young people of color in Texas," she said. "SB4, voter ID law and redistricting are other pieces of their master plan to marginalize and criminalize people of color and other people who aren’t far Right, white, Christian straight males."

In Austin, officials of the immigrant advocacy group Workers Defense Project also expressed outcry over Paxton's latest move: "This is just another cowardly attack on Texas families,' WDP officials wrote on the group's Facebook page. "Today, Gov. Abbott and his cronies once again put partisan politics above the basic needs of working families. Families across the state will continue to fight for a Texas that fights for them."

Gov. Greg Abbott also has championed a crackdown on immigrants, pushing aggressively for the passage of SB4 that takes effect Sept. 1 he made a priority issue of his agenda. The governor's forcefulness in calling for wholesale deportation of undocumented immigrants—whether or not they have criminal records—has taken many by surprise given his longtime marriage to a woman who is herself the grandchild of Mexican immigrants.

Abbott's resolve to deport all undocumented immigrants in Texas is such that he once rescinded $1.5 million in grants for country services unrelated to law enforcement as part of a feud with Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez. Abbott viewed the sheriff as being non-compliant in assisting federal immigration officials rooting out immigrants, stripping the county of grant funding that had been earmarked at several agencies unrelated to law enforcement as retribution.

>>> Official photo of Attorney General Ken Paxton via State of Texas