Koch groups: DACA lawsuit ‘increases uncertainty’ for US, Dreamers

Two groups associated with Republican mega-donors Charles and David Koch on Wednesday criticized a lawsuit filed by Texas and seven other states to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

The Libre Initiative and Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce issued a joint statement, saying the move — led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) — “increases uncertainty for Dreamers and the nation.”

Paxton filed the suit Tuesday, according to The Texas Tribune, in response to a series of court decisions that have kept DACA alive after President Trump’s announcement in September that he would rescind the program.

{mosads}”This is starting to feel like Groundhog Day,” Libre Initiative President Daniel Garza said. “For years, we have been calling on Congress to pass legislation to address the status of the Dreamers. But because Congress and the president continue in their inability to come together on this issue, a litany of lawsuits and court decisions make the already-uncertain situation much more complex.”

The two Koch-affiliated groups have led the charge from the right to resolve the legality of so-called Dreamers — immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

“The Dreamers were brought here through no fault of their own. They are workers, students, and men and women in our armed services,” Garza said. “Until a law that provides them certainty is enacted, they are unable to plan their lives and futures.”

“That hurts all of our communities, and it is contributing to greater division in our nation over how to address this important question,” he added.

Trump’s rescission — and the March 5 deadline he set for Congress to replace DACA — set off a flurry of legislative debate and proposals. But no agreement was reached and no bills were passed.

Part of Trump’s reasoning behind ending the program stemmed from threats made by Paxton and nine other state attorneys general to challenge DACA’s constitutionality in court.

The then-10-state coalition set a deadline for Trump to end the Obama-era program. At the time, DACA protected 690,000 Dreamers from deportation and gave them renewable three-year work permits.

The coalition started to dissolve in September ahead of that deadline, but Attorney General Jeff Sessions alluded to its court challenge as part of the rationale behind DACA’s reversal.

“If we were to keep the Obama Administration’s executive amnesty policy, the likeliest outcome is that it would be enjoined,” Sessions said.

Paxton’s current coalition includes Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia. Kansas and Tennessee have since dropped plans to sue.

The new lawsuit will compete with injunctions from three federal courts that have blocked Trump’s DACA repeal, further mystifying the program’s future and increasing the likelihood that it could be taken up by the Supreme Court.

“This lawsuit is fresh evidence that Congress must get moving now to enact a permanent solution for Dreamers. Every day Congress dithers, the situation grows more complex, adding greater uncertainty to the economy and further tormenting Dreamers and their families,” Nathan Nascimento, Freedom Partners’s executive vice president, said.