The fight to defend DACA continues!
Yesterday, a group of DACA recipients with Make the Road NY traveled to New Orleans to join more than 100 young people and their families to hear the oral arguments on the legality of the DACA program in the Texas v. United States case at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. During this hearing, the Department of Justice, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), and the state of New Jersey, argued in our favor on technical reasons that Texas’s challenge to DACA should be denied.
After the court hearing, DACA recipients and DACA-eligible youth who made it inside, came out of the court locked in arms, chanting loud and clear: “Undocumented, unafraid. ¡Sin papeles, sin miedo!”. We then proceeded to take the streets of New Orleans to send a powerful message to Congress and President Biden to deliver on their promise of a pathway to citizenship for millions in our community.
Coincidentally, today, DACA recipients, and DACA-eligible youth leaders with Make the Road NY, along with Make the Road NY’s legal team and our co-counsel, Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at Yale Law School, and the National Immigration Law Center, attended the court hearing in our Batalla Vidal v. Mayorkas case at U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
At the hearing, we argued for relief for nearly 100,000 first-time DACA applicants, and DACA recipients with renewal applications filed more than one year after the expiration of their previous grants of DACA, all of whom are currently in limbo and cut off from DACA. Similar to yesterday, the plaintiffs in our case came out of the court holding hands and chanting powerfully. Check out the video here.
We are fighting in the courts to keep DACA alive. Donate $10 today in honor of DACA recipients.
We do not know when we will receive decisions in yesterday’s and today’s hearings, but we will share updates as soon as we have them.
Thank you for joining us in the fight to defend DACA at all costs.
¡Sí se puede!