Biden administration urges judge to allow latest ‘Dreamers’ rule – JP

Judge Andrew Hanen of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas previously ruled against the Obama administration’s version of the program but left the policy in place for current recipients. But while the government’s appeal was pending, DHS put the program through the formal regulatory process and published a formal rule to address some of Hanen’s concerns about how the immigration program was issued.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit backed Hanen’s earlier ruling but did not review the latest version of the policy, so it sent the case back to Hanen to consider.

In a court filing in January, the Republican states asked Hanen, again, to strike down the latest version of DACA. They argued that while the Biden administration’s new rule “remedies the procedural defects of the DACA Memorandum, it suffers from the same substantive flaws.”

The states also asked the judge to issue a ruling that would block the government from approving new DACA requests, as well as prevent the government from approving renewal requests from current recipients after two years.

In Thursday’s brief, the government asked that, if Hanen does rule in favor of the states, he allow DHS to wind down the program at its own pace, and that if he must impose a time frame, that he set one “substantially longer” than two years.