Immigrants file lawsuit over Trump adminstration’s decision to end DACA News
Immigrants file lawsuit over Trump adminstration’s decision to end DACA

Six immigrants filed a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] on Monday challenging the Trump administration’s decision to end [press release] the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) [USCIS materials], arguing that the Trump administration did not follow proper administrative procedure.

The case, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website], is the first brought by DACA recipients. According to the complaint:

Notwithstanding the severe harm it will inflict, the government arbitrarily decided to break its promises to Plaintiffs and hundreds of thousands of other Dreamers by terminating the DACA program. This cruel bait and switch, which was motivated by unconstitutional bias against Mexicans and Latinos, violates the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment, the due process rights of Plaintiffs and other DACA recipients, and federal law, including the Administrative Procedure Act. Plaintiffs therefore seek equitable and injunctive relief to enjoin this unlawful and unconstitutional action, and respectfully request that the Court compel the government to honor its promises and uphold its end of the DACA bargain.

Earlier in September a group of 15 states and the District of Columbia also filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] challenging the Trump administration’s decision, vowing to protect young immigrants.

The Trump administration’s decision to disband [CNN report] DACA will affect nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants. No new undocumented immigrants may register [JURIST report] under DACA, and the immigrants whose DACA documents are about to expire must renew by October 5, 2017. According to the administration’s press release, current DACA recipients generally will not be impacted until after March 5, 2018, which will give “Congress the opportunity to consider appropriate legislative solutions.”

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.