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BREAKING: Kris Kobach's Lawsuit Against Deferred Action (DACA) Dismissed

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A US district court in Texas today dismissed Kris Kobach’s lawsuit against the deferred action (DACA) program which has for almost a year now granted DREAMers temporary relief from deportation.

The suit was dismissed on procedural grounds, and the court held that the Civil Service Reform Act–a law governing federal employment disputes–barred the court from hearing the complaints filed.

Last year Kobach–who served as Mitt Romney’s immigration adviser, championed concepts like self-deportation, and engineered anti-immigrant state laws like Alabama’s HB 56 and Arizona’s SB 1070–filed the suit on behalf of immigration agents like Chris Crane, who alleged that the DACA program prevented them from carrying out their job defending the Constitution.

As Kobach said at the time:

[ICE agents are] being ordered by their federal-appointee superiors to break federal law, or if they don’t break federal law, according to their orders they will be disciplined. This is an absolutely breath-taking assertion of authority and an abuse of authority.

In January of this year, the case looked perilous for DREAMers and their supporters when Judge Reed O’Connor indicated that he was likely to rule in favor of Kobach and Crane, and block the deferred action program.  Opponents of immigration reform who believe that DACA is an illicit use of the President’s executive powers cheered the indication, even though legal experts have firmly agreed that the President does have such authority.

The dismissal of the case represents another setback for opponents of immigration reform, especially Kris Kobach, whose star seems to have peaked with the implementation of Alabama’s HB 56–and has since set. For years, Kobach has been the “genius” behind the anti-immigrant agenda. Kobach is on a real losing streak, both legally and politically, but still seems determined to drive the GOP off the demographic cliff.

As of June 2013, DACA has recognized just over 400,000 DREAMers, and the program will see its first birthday next month.

View the decision here:

Crane v. Napolitano (N.D. Tex. July 31, 2013) – Order Dismissing Case