Illinois Attorney General issued the following announcement on June 18.
Attorney General Kwame Raoul issued the following statement after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Illinois and a coalition of 15 other attorneys general along with several other plaintiffs against federal attempts to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
“DACA reflects our values as a nation and the belief that young people brought to this country for a better life deserve the chance to get ahead. Dreamers make invaluable contributions to our schools, workplaces, and communities every day, and rescinding DACA would be doing this country and all of its residents a great disservice,” Raoul said. “I applaud the Supreme Court for today’s decision in our case and others that protects thousands of young people and their rights to live and work in the only country they have ever known as home. I will continue to fight any discriminatory actions that cause uncertainty and fear in immigrant communities in Illinois and throughout the country.”
In September 2017, Raoul joined a coalition of 16 attorneys general in filing a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York challenging the federal government’s decision to terminate DACA. After the coalition successfully obtained an injunction against the termination of DACA in February 2018 from the district court, the federal government consolidated its appeal with several others and persuaded the Supreme Court to hear all the DACA cases at once.
In the Supreme Court, Raoul and the coalition argued in a September 2019 brief that the administration’s decision to scrap DACA was based on critical errors. These included erroneous assumptions about how DACA works, reliance on unhelpful case law, and omission of essential factors – including a failure to explain the administration’s abrupt change in position on DACA’s legality or considering the interests of those affected. Today, the Supreme Court sided with Raoul and the coalition alongside many plaintiffs from across the nation challenging the administration’s actions.
Since 2012, DACA has allowed approximately 800,000 young people who came to this country as children and lack legal status to live, study, and work in the U.S. without fear of arrest or deportation. Illinois is home to more than 35,000 DACA recipients, the third highest total of any state, according to U.S. Customs and Immigration Services.
Original source can be found here.