Attorney General Becerra Hails Victory for Dreamers Following Ninth Circuit Decision on DACA

Federal court of appeals keeps preliminary injunction in place, allowing DACA recipients to continue renewing applications

SACRAMENTO – California Attorney General Xavier Becerra responded to today’s decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the case Regents of the University of California, et al., v. United States Department of Homeland Security, et al., a legal challenge to the Trump Administration’s illegal rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

“Today’s decision is a tremendous victory for our young immigrant Dreamers and the rule of law,” said Attorney General Becerra. "In California and across our nation, Dreamers significantly enrich our communities as scholars, entrepreneurs, first responders and much more. This fight, of course, is far from over. We will continue to defend Dreamers and DACA all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.”

In January, Attorney General Becerra – joined by the Attorneys General for Maine, Maryland and Minnesota, as well as the University of California, individual DACA recipients and other plaintiffs – secured a nationwide preliminary injunction halting the Trump Administration’s action to end the DACA program. The district court determined that the merits of California’s case were strong and that there would be immediate harm if the Administration’s plan to terminate DACA were to proceed.  As a result of the preliminary injunction, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services resumed accepting requests to renew deferred action under DACA. To date, more than 187,000 Dreamers have regained or extended their DACA protections as a result of the court’s injunction, and hundreds of thousands of additional Dreamers are eligible to do so.

Today, the Ninth Circuit affirmed that preliminary injunction. In their arguments to the Ninth Circuit, Attorney General Becerra’s legal team emphasized the irreparable harm that DACA recipients, their communities and the states would suffer if the program were terminated.