NEW ORLEANS: Immigrants who grew up in the United States after being brought here illegally as children will be among demonstrators outside a federal courthouse in New Orleans on Thursday as three appellate judges hear arguments over the Biden administration’s policy shielding them from deportation.
At stake in the long legal battle playing out at the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals is the future of about 535,000 people who have long-established lives in the US, even though they don’t hold citizenship or legal residency status and they live with the possibility of eventual deportation.
“No matter what is said and done, I choose the US and I have the responsibility to make it a better place for all of us,” Greisa Martinez Rosas, said Wednesday. She is a beneficiary of the policy and a leader of the advocacy group United We Dream. She plans to travel from Arizona to attend a rally near the court, where hundreds of the policy’s supporters are expected to gather.
The panel hearing arguments won’t rule immediately. Whatever they decide, the case will almost certainly wind up at the US Supreme Court.
Former President Barack Obama first put the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in place in 2012, citing inaction by Congress on legislation aimed at giving those brought to the US as youngsters a path to legal status and citizenship. Years of litigation followed. President Joe Biden renewed the program in hopes of winning court approval.
But in September 2023, US District Judge Andrew Hanen in Houston said the executive branch had overstepped its authority in creating the program. Hanen barred the government from approving any new applications, but left the program intact for existing recipients, known as “Dreamers,” during appeals.
Defenders of the policy argue that Congress has given the executive branch’s Department of Homeland Security authority to set immigration policy, and that the states challenging the program have no basis to sue.
“They cannot identify any harms flowing from DACA,” Nina Perales, vice president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said in a news conference this week.
Texas is leading a group of Republican-dominated states challenging the policy. The Texas Attorney General’s Office did not respond to an emailed interview request. But in briefs, they and other challengers claim the states incur hundreds of millions of dollars in health care, education and other costs when immigrants are allowed to remain in the country illegally. The other states include Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kansas and Mississippi.
Among those states’ allies in court briefs is the Immigration Reform Law Institute. “Congress has repeatedly refused to legalize DACA recipients, and no administration can take that step in its place,” the group’s executive director, Dale L. Wilcox, said in a statement earlier this year.
The panel hearing the case consists of judges Jerry Smith, nominated to the 5th Circuit by former President Ronald Reagan; Edith Brown Clement, nominated by former President George W. Bush; and Stephen Higginson, nominated by Obama.
Immigrants brought to US as children are asking judges to uphold protections against deportation
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Immigrants brought to US as children are asking judges to uphold protections against deportation
- At stake is the future of about 535,000 people who have long-established lives in the US, even though they don’t hold citizenship or legal residency status
US Justice Department official eyes cases against Cuba leaders as Trump floats ‘friendly takeover’
- “Working group” formed to build cases against people connected to the Cuban government
- Trump’s has increasingly displayed aggressive stance against Cuba’s communist leadership
MIAMI: The top Justice Department prosecutor in Miami is considering criminal investigations of Cuban government officials, according to people familiar with the matter. The inquiry comes as President Donald Trump has raised the possibility of a “friendly takeover” of the communist-run island.
Jason Reding Quiñones, the US attorney for the Southern District of Florida, has created a “working group” that includes federal prosecutors and officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies to try to build cases against people connected to the Cuban government and its Communist Party, according to one of the people. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the effort.
It was not immediately clear which Cuban officials the office is targeting or what criminal charges prosecutors may be looking to bring.
The Justice Department said in a statement Friday that “federal prosecutors from across the country work every day to pursue justice, which includes efforts to combat transnational crime.”
The effort is taking place against the backdrop of Trump’s increasingly aggressive stance against Cuba’s communist leadership.
Emboldened by the US capture of Cuba’s close ally, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump last month said his administration was in high-level talks with officials in Havana to pursue “a friendly takeover” of the country. He repeated those claims this week, saying his attention would turn back to Cuba once the war with Iran winds down.
“They want to make a deal so bad,” Trump said of Cuba’s leadership.
While Cuba has faded from Washington’s radar as a major national security threat in recent decades, it remains a priority in the US Attorney’s office in Miami, whose political, economic and cultural life is dominated by Cuban-American exiles.
The FBI field office has a dedicated Cuba group that in 2024 was instrumental in the arrest of former US Ambassador Victor Manuel Rocha on charges of serving as a secret agent of Cuba stretching back to the 1970s.
In recent weeks, several Miami Republicans, in addition to Florida Sen. Rick Scott, have called on the Trump administration to reopen its criminal investigation into the 1996 shootdown of four planes operated by anti-communist exiles.
In a letter to Trump on Feb. 13, lawmakers including Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez highlighted decades-old news reports indicating that former President Raúl Castro — the head of Cuba’s military at the time — gave the order to shoot down the unarmed Cessna aircraft.
“We believe unequivocally that Raúl Castro is responsible for this heinous crime,” lawmakers wrote. “It is time for him to be brought to justice.”
While no indictment against Castro has been announced, Florida’s attorney general said this week that he would open a state-level investigation into the crime.
The Trump administration has also accused Cuba of not cooperating with American counterterrorism efforts, adding it alongside North Korea and Iran to a select few nations the US considers state sponsors of terrorism.
The designation stems from Cuba’s harboring of US fugitives and its refusal to extradite several Colombian rebel leaders while they were engaged in peace talks with the South American nation.
