The Studies

Texas II

Texas II is the abbreviated title for the 2021 Texas District Court case, formerly known as Texas, et al. v. United States, et al., 549 F. Supp. 3d 572 (S.D. Tex. 2021). The case focused on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which was created from a 2012 Memorandum under the Obama Administration. The Memorandum outlined criteria for individuals, primarily those who were brought to the United States as children, who could apply to be granted a two-year period of renewable deferred action/“lawful presence.” DACA recipients can also receive other benefits, such as work authorization, under the program. However, it must be noted that the memorandum did not guarantee “no substantive right, immigration status or pathway to citizenship. Only the Congress, acting through its legislative authority, can confer these rights.” Texas, et al., 549 F. Supp. 3d 578 (2021). 

The Plaintiffs argued that the program is “illegal because its creation violated, and its continued existence violates the procedural and substantive aspects of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).” Texas, et al. v. United States, et al. 549 F. Supp. 3d 572, 576 (2021). The Plaintiffs also claim that the Executive Branch violated the “Take Care Clause” of the Constitution when it created DACA, and that the state of Texas has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in healthcare on DACA recipients. The APA is central to the district court’s decision, as the APA oversees the process of how federal agencies issue their rules and regulations. Another crucial part of the case, the “Take Care Clause” of the U.S. Constitution, states that the President “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” (U.S. CONST. Art. II § 3). While the primary defendants of the case, the Federal Defendants, declined to defend DACA’s lawfulness, additional defendants joined to fill in this gap. In their motion for summary judgment, the Defendant-Intervenors argue that the Plaintiffs do not have standing (known as Article III standing) since they have not provided sufficient evidence or gone through “any concrete injury,” and that the elimination of DACA would reduce their alleged injury. 

A prior Supreme Court case decision in United States et al. v. Texas et al., 579 U.S. 547 (2016) came after the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) created Expanded DACA and the sister program Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) in the 2014 DAPA Memorandum. This 2016 case is referred to as Texas I, whereas the 2021 district court case is known as Texas II. DAPA is a “...a separate and distinct policy of enforcement discretion for up to 4 million parents of United States citizens and lawful residents” (DACA Rec. Brief at 9). Expanded DACA, on the other hand, is not a separate DACA program. It simply expanded the original DACA program’s deferred action time from 2 years to 3 years. It also expanded the scope of eligible immigrants for Expanded DACA to 4.4 million people compared to the 1.9 million people eligible for 2012 DACA. Texas, et al., 549 F. Supp. 3d 578 (2021).

In Texas I, 26 states, including the current Plaintiff States, sued to enjoin the implementation of DAPA and Expanded DACA. This is because DACA, DAPA, and Expanded DACA increased the total population of immigrants that could be granted lawful presence from 1.9 million originally just from DACA to 5.8 million from all 3 programs combined. Texas, et al., 549 F. Supp. 3d 578-579 (2021). The case reached both the Southern District Texas Court and then the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2015, and both courts enjoined the implementation of DAPA and Expanded DACA. However, the Supreme Court’s decision in Texas I was split, and all parties agreed to dismiss the case on the grounds that the Government would phase out the DACA program. Id. at 579. While the Government was attempting to phase out DACA and other cases ensued as “...other courts around the nation were asked to enjoin or vacate the attempt to end the program,” the Plaintiffs filed the current case to challenge the lawfulness of the DACA program as it was originally implemented back in 2012. The Plaintiffs in Texas II were seeking the same desired result they wanted from Texas I: the end of DACA. 

Texas II Ruling in Summary

The district court determined that Texas II does present an Article III controversy even though the Plaintiffs and the Government agreed that DACA was unlawful. Given that the case has been vehemently fought by lawyers for the parties involved, the Court is tasked with proving that one plaintiff must have standing, and the Court will focus specifically on Texas since all parties have focused on the impacts of DACA in Texas. By following the law laid out in Texas I and in Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007), the Court found that Texas has special solicitude, or standing to sue, given that Texas’s quasi-sovereign interests have been affected, and the Fifth Circuit ruled in Texas I that states had special solicitude to defend against DAPA and Expanded DACA because of the injury to the state’s lawmaking authority. Texas, et al., 549 F. Supp. 3d 586 (2021). The quasi-sovereign interests in this case are social services like health care expenditures the Plaintiff States alleged Texas bears because of DACA.

The court also ruled that DACA undermines the measures and authority of Congress. Measures of Congress extend to protecting American jobs for those who are in the United States legally rather than for those who are undocumented. The decision states “...DACA not only interferes with the employer side of this balancing act, which makes it illegal for employers to hire those who are here illegally, but it interferes with the labor side as well” Id. at 615. Additionally, the decision states that “just as states cannot set up obstacles to the purposes and objectives of Congressional legislation, neither can an executive agency” Id. at 616. Congress did not grant DHS the authority to adopt DACA: “Congress’s clear articulation of laws for removal, lawful presence, and work authorization illustrates a manifest intent to reserve itself the authority to determine the framework of the nation’s immigration system” Id. at 614. DACA is "in excess of statutory jurisdiction” and “short of statutory right” according to the Texas I decision, and therefore violates the APA.

Regarding the Take Care Clause of the Constitution issue, the district court declined to rule on this matter. The Plaintiff States allege DACA is a constitutional violation since the executive branch cannot carry out legislative action, and therefore cannot implement statutes that classify whether or not a large group of undocumented individuals are legal citizens. However, the Court will not rule on this matter until “...a full hearing on the merits or until the appropriate court on appeal instructs it to decide the issue.” Id. at 622.

Given that the district court ruled in favor of the Plaintiff States, the district court imposed a permanent injunction vacating the 20212 DACA Memorandum and enjoined it nationwide. In other words, DACA can no longer accept new recipients as of the Texas II case decision.