A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit heard 90 minutes of oral argument Wednesday in Texas v. United States, the ongoing litigation challenging the legality of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — the Obama-era program shielding roughly 600,000 people from deportation.
The Key Legal Question
Texas argues that the Biden administration's 2022 DACA rule, codified in the Code of Federal Regulations, violated the Administrative Procedure Act's notice-and-comment requirements and that Congress's power to regulate immigration precludes executive action. The government counters that decades of prosecutorial discretion doctrine and substantial reliance interests support the program's legality.