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Ken Paxton-Led Lawsuit Seeking To Make Hundreds Of Thousands Of Dreamers Deportable Goes Before Precarious Appeals Court

by Gabe Ortiz on

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Hundreds gathered in New Orleans on Thursday ahead of a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals hearing in Texas v. United States, a GOP-led lawsuit that could determine the future of hundreds of thousands of American families that have been kept together thanks to the popular and successful DACA program.

Among those targeted by the litigation, spearheaded by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, is Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, a DACA recipient who has called the U.S. her home since arriving from Brazil when she was a teenager. While her family was able to find better opportunities here, she told Spectrum News that it was still “a really difficult transition. I don’t know many 14-year-olds who want to move countries where they don’t speak the language, or they don’t know anybody.”

She described the June 2012 announcement of the DACA program as “life changing, possibly lifesaving. I could see myself working in the fields that I was passionate about.” Now deputy director of federal advocacy for United We Dream, Macedo do Nascimento advocates for other young Americans-in-waiting like herself, as well as their families. Since its implementation more than a decade ago, DACA has allowed more than 800,000 young immigrants to pursue higher education, open businesses, buy homes and plant roots here, and more fully contribute to their communities.

But Paxton, the impeached attorney general of Texas, has been seeking to end those dreams by using the anti-immigrant judicial pipeline to make Dreamers deportable (more on this later in the blog). In New Orleans on Thursday, Dreamers rallied in defense of DACA and to shine a light on what’s at stake in the always precarious Fifth Circuit:

Jocelyn, a member of Make the Road New York, said that she applied for DACA when she turned 16. “It’s allowed me to work and to be in this country without the fear of deportation,” she said. “We’re asking for the courts to not only advocate for DACA recipients but for those who don’t have it and for safety for our community.” While current and former DACA beneficiaries can for now continue to apply for renewed relief, Paxton’s litigation has blocked all first-time applications.

In addition to being arguably the most corrupt state attorney general in the country – remember, it was just last year that he was impeached and temporarily suspended by the Texas House on charges of bribery, abuse of office and obstruction by a wide 121-23 vote – Paxton’s also been the leading GOP political strategist abusing the judiciary through the anti-immigrant judicial pipeline to further his right-wing political agenda and separate American families. America’s Voice legal advisor David Leopold has been shining a light on this tactic for years, writing in 2021 that the pipeline “flows from Republican Attorneys General” – like Paxton – “to hand-picked United States District Court Judges (usually Trump appointees in Texas), to the conservative Fifth Circuit and finally, to the United States Supreme Court.”

One of Paxton’s go-to judges at the mouth of the pipeline, fellow anti-immigrant zealot Andrew Hanen, complied with Paxton’s demand and blocked all new DACA applications in a July 2021 ruling, a decision that left tens of thousands of first-time applications in limbo and an astounding 400,000 eligible applicants unable to apply at all. After taking office, President Biden introduced a rule that intended to protect DACA by addressing concerns that opponents supposedly had about how the Obama administration implemented the policy. 

But despite the Biden administration dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, Hanen ruled against that too. That’s because it was never about procedure or policy, it was about anti-immigrant extremism and using the pipeline to achieve that means. Paxton and Project 2025 allies have also used the pipeline to block the Biden administration’s recent process protecting the undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens. It’s not just long-settled immigrants who are under attack by Paxton’s extremism, either. The corrupt GOP official has been abusing his authority as state attorney general, using bogus conspiracy theories as an excuse to raid the homes of Latino voters and organizers in the state, including 87-year-old great-grandmother Lidia Martinez. 

Despite Paxton’s clear intimidation efforts against Latino U.S. citizens, organizers said they are only feeling more amped up ahead of the election. House Democrats representing Texas and 16 state attorneys general have been among the voices also urging the Justice Department to launch an investigation into Paxton’s actions.

As America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas noted earlier this week, we should all be clear-eyed about who and what is at stake in the DACA case. “DACA recipients are deeply rooted in their communities and families; they are doctors, teachers, and nurses; they are our neighbors, co-workers, and friends,” she said. “On average, those with DACA have lived in the US for 25 years and they follow a process in which they renew their criminal background checks and expensive paperwork every two years.”

Making Dreamers deportable, as Paxton and Project 2025 are seeking to do, would rip parents from at least 250,000 U.S. citizen children, uproot long standing contributors from their communities and workplaces, and end up costing the U.S. economy up to a trillion dollars in losses, according to research from the Coalition for the American Dream. At risk are hundreds of thousands of DACA recipient contributors to our nation, including teachers, business owners and jobs creators, Broadway actors and television stars, Olympians, and more than 200,000 frontline workers, including doctors and medical students.

And despite Paxton’s unfounded claims that undocumented workers are hurting his state, it’s actually Paxton who is doing the hurting here. Texas, home to the second largest population of DACA recipients in the nation, will be hit economically if he ultimately succeeds at his despicable legal effort. 

Nearly 11,000 Dallas residents are DACA beneficiaries, contributing more than $35 million in local and state taxes in 2022. Across Texas, DACA recipients contribute more than $400 million in local and state taxes annually. What can’t be so easily quantified in dollars and cents will be the empty tables and homes across Texas if these parents and workers are disappeared.

“We are your neighbors. We are part of your communities. We are your family,” Macedo do Nascimento continued in her remarks. “This country needs us, too. We are part of it now.”

“There is no doubt that an end to DACA would be catastrophic for the entire country who would witness neighbors, coworkers, and loved ones ripped from our communities and torn from the only places we’ve called home,” Greisa Martinez Rosas, Executive Director at United We Dream Action, said this week. “But this catastrophe is not inevitable.”

“Officials at all levels —from local to federal— can and must stand with the majority of Americans who overwhelmingly support DACA and take urgent action to deliver protections now,” she continued. “These violent efforts to hurt our communities will continue to escalate, but what remains true is that collectively, we have the power to reject these anti-immigrant assaults and take bold, public action to protect each other, the homes we’ve built together, and the future we wish to share.”

RELATED: DACA Recipients Are Building Homes, Opening Businesses, and Are ‘More Integrated In the American Economy Than They Have Ever Been,’ Annual Survey Shows

Hundreds Of Thousands Of Additional Immigrants Could Be Eligible For DACA But Are Blocked Due To GOP Litigation

The Corrupt Stench of Impeached Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Includes His Anti-Immigrant Lawsuits