Fifteen states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit here Wednesday challenging President Trump's plan to end a program protecting young immigrants from deportation.

The suit was first announced by Washington state Atty. Gen. Bob Ferguson, who called Trump's act “a dark time for our country.”

Plaintiffs include New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia

On Tuesday, U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions said the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, will end in six months, giving Congress time to find a legislative solution for the immigrants.

The participants were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or came with families who overstayed visas. </s> Fifteen states and the District of Columbia on sued Wednesday to block President Donald Trump's plan to end a program protecting young immigrants from deportation — an act Washington state's attorney general called "a dark time for our country."

The lawsuit was filed in the Eastern District of New York. The plaintiffs were New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia.

On Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said a program, known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA, will end in six months to give Congress time to find a legislative solution for the immigrants.

The participants were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or came with families who overstayed visas.

Those already enrolled in DACA remain covered until their permits expire. If their permits expire before March, 5, 2018, they are eligible to renew them for another two years as long as they apply by Oct. 5. But the program isn't accepting new applications.

Opponents of the program said they are pleased with the Trump administration's decision. They called DACA an unconstitutional abuse of executive power but proponents of the program said the move by Trump was cruel.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said the action violates the due process rights of the immigrants. He said he fears the information the immigrants provided the government to participate in DACA could be used against them.

"It's outrageous, it's not right," an emotional Ferguson said at a news conference in Seattle. "As attorney general for the state of Washington, I have a hammer, it's the law."

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee joined Ferguson at the news conference and said "this is one more of a long train of abuses that this president has attempted to foist on this great nation."

Earlier this year, Ferguson sued Trump over the initial travel ban, which resulted in a federal judge blocking nationwide enforcement. </s> Fifteen states and the District of Columbia sued Wednesday to block President Donald Trump's plan to end a program protecting young immigrants from deportation — an act Washington state's attorney general called part of a "dark time for our country."

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Brooklyn asked a judge to conclude that the president's action involving the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, is unconstitutional.

It called the move "a culmination of President Trump's oft-stated commitments ... to punish and disparage people with Mexican roots."

Rescinding DACA will also injure state-run colleges and universities, upset workplaces and damage companies and economies that include immigrants covered under the program, the lawsuit says.

"The consequence of the president's animus-driven decision is that approximately 800,000 persons who have availed themselves of the program will ultimately lose its protections" and be exposed to deportation, the lawsuit says.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Tuesday the program will end in six months so Congress can have time to find a legislative solution for the people in the program, who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or came with families who overstayed visas.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia.

California, one of the most solid Democratic states, was noticeably absent.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra plans to file a separate lawsuit because a quarter of DACA recipients are California residents, his spokeswoman Bethany Lesser said.

Becerra's office has not said when the lawsuit will be filed or whether it will include different legal arguments.

Under the move by Trump, people already enrolled in DACA remain covered until their permits expire. If that happens before March 5, they are eligible to renew them for another two years as long as they apply by Oct. 5. But the program isn't accepting new applications.

Opponents of the program said they are pleased with the Trump administration's decision. They called DACA an unconstitutional abuse of executive power.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson, both Democrats, called Trump's action cruel and outrageous, given that the decision was announced by Sessions rather than the president himself.

A half-dozen beneficiaries of DACA — young adults from Mexico, Venezuela, Peru and elsewhere, including some now working at law firms or for the state Legislature — flanked Inslee and Ferguson at a news conference in Seattle announcing the lawsuit.

"It's outrageous, it's not right," an emotional Ferguson said. "As attorney general for the state of Washington, I have a hammer, it's the law."

Inslee said, "This is one more of a long train of abuses that this president has attempted to foist on this great nation."

Earlier this year, Ferguson sued Trump over his travel ban, prompting a federal judge to block nationwide enforcement. </s> The University of California has sued the Trump administration over its decision to end a program protecting hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation.The lawsuit filed on Friday in federal court in San Francisco includes university president Janet Napolitano as a plaintiff.Napolitano was Homeland Security secretary under the Obama administration and helped implement its Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.The program protected about 800,000 people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or came with families who overstayed visas.The lawsuit says the university will lose students and employees because of President Donald Trump's decision to end the program.An email sent to the U.S. Department of Justice seeking comment was not immediately returned.Fifteen states have sued separately over the president's decision. </s> Docmary Reyes, 21, left, a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient on her way to the University of California, Davis, joins supporters of the DACA program during a protest in Los Angeles. | Richard Vogel/AP Photo UC system files suit over DACA

LOS ANGELES — The University of California and its president, a former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, on Friday filed suit challenging President Donald Trump’s decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, claiming it violates due process provisions of the Constitution.

The lawsuit comes two days after 15 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration over the order, which affects thousands of undocumented people brought the country illegally as children.

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The University of California and its president, Janet Napolitano, said the lawsuit was the first to be filed by a university.

“Neither I, nor the University of California, take the step of suing the federal government lightly, especially not the very agency that I led,” Napolitano, a former Arizona governor and Obama-era secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a prepared statement. “It is imperative, however, that we stand up for these vital members of the UC community. They represent the best of who we are — hard working, resilient and motivated high achievers. To arbitrarily and capriciously end the DACA program, which benefits our country as a whole, is not only unlawful, it is contrary to our national values and bad policy.”

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California’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, has said he also plans to file suit against the administration. California was not among the earlier states to file suit.

The University of California said it has about 4,000 students who are undocumented, “a substantial number of whom have DACA.” Immigration is a major issue in heavily Democratic California, where the UC allows so-called Dreamers to pay in-state tuition and offers legal services to undocumented students. </s> A federal judge in California ordered the Trump administration on Tuesday to keep in place the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects undocumented immigrants who entered the country as children from deportation and allows them to work legally, while a lawsuit proceeds.

The order, signed by U.S. District Judge Williams Alsup, marks a major triumph for immigrant rights groups who have rallied around the program that benefits nearly 700,000 people.

The preliminary injunction on Trump’s cancellation of DACA requires the Department of Homeland Security “to maintain the DACA program on a nationwide basis on the same terms and conditions as were in effect before the rescission on September 5, 2017” ― including allowing those who already benefit from DACA to apply to renew their status.

The order does not, however, allow people who have never held DACA protections to apply as new applicants.

“Dreamers’ lives were thrown into chaos when the Trump administration tried to terminate the DACA program without obeying the law,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) said in a statement. “Today’s ruling is a huge step in the right direction.

The Trump administration “looks forward to vindicating its position in further litigation,” Justice Department spokesman Devin O’Malley said in a statement.

“Tonight’s order doesn’t change the Department of Justice’s position on the facts,” the statement said. “DACA was implemented unilaterally after Congress declined to extend these benefits to this same group of illegal aliens.”

Before the order, the program was scheduled to begin phasing out on March 5.

Alsup is presiding over five lawsuits challenging the legality of Trump’s termination of DACA that were consolidated into one in the Northern District of California. The state of California, the Regents of the University of California, the city of San José and several DACA recipients are among those suing in an attempt to preserve the program.

The lawsuits argue that the White House flouted the process for terminating the program in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and that the cancellation was based on flawed legal logic.

The Obama administration used executive action to create the DACA program in 2012, allowing undocumented immigrants who arrived as children or young teenagers to apply to work legally in the country and avoid deportation for a renewable two-year period.

The Trump administration announced in September, however, that it would cancel the program, citing a threat from a coalition of 10 states, led by Texas, to challenge the program’s constitutionality. </s> New York and Washington state on Monday vowed to sue President Donald Trump if he scraps a program shielding from deportation immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children.

The Trump administration is expected to announce on Tuesday that he will end the so-called Dreamers program but give the U.S. Congress six months to craft legislation to replace it, according to sources familiar with the situation.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions will announce plans for ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, but will not take questions, the Justice Department said on Monday.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, in a joint statement with the state's attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, said, "The president's action would upend the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people who have only ever called America their home."

The attorney general of Washington state, Bob Ferguson, also threatened legal action. "I will use all the legal tools at my disposal to defend the thousands of Dreamers in Washington state," he said in a statement.

Ferguson and Schneiderman were among 20 attorneys general who wrote to Trump in July to say that if he ended the program, they would defend it "by all appropriate means."

Nine Republican state attorneys general have said they would file suit on Tuesday if Trump did not end the program.

The White House declined to comment on Monday.

DACA is a policy created by former President Barack Obama that protects nearly 800,000 young people, often called "Dreamers," from deportation and allows them to work legally.

Under the shift Trump is considering, any Dreamer with a valid work permit would be able to remain in the United States until the permit expires, in the absence of congressional action, sources familiar with the matter said.

At the same time, the Department of Homeland Security would not target Dreamers for deportation, one of the sources said.

Dreamers are a fraction of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, most of them Hispanic. Trump as a candidate promised to deport all of them, but many Americans have rallied to support the young adults, who have spent large parts of their lives in the United States.

While Republicans in Congress have generally taken a hard line on illegal immigration and are sympathetic to the argument that Obama overstepped his bounds in creating DACA, several have stepped forward to call for action to protect the Dreamers.

House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the top elected Republican official, on Friday urged Trump not to rescind the program, as did Senator Orrin Hatch. Senator James Lankford said on Monday it was not appropriate to "hold children legally accountable for the actions of their parents."

Another Republican, Senator Tom Cotton, who has been particularly outspoken on reforming immigration laws, told the Washington Examiner he supports legislation that would protect dreamers and take legal steps to reduce illegal immigration.

Many prominent business leaders, including the chief executive officers of Microsoft, General Motors and Facebook Inc – Satya Nadella, Mary Barra and Mark Zuckerberg, respectively -- have also urged Trump not to reverse the Dreamer program. </s> A federal judge in California issued a nationwide injunction Tuesday night blocking the Trump administration from dismantling the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects immigrants brought to the U.S. at a young age from deportation.

The judge, William Alsup of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, ruled that the Trump administration must allow the nearly 690,000 Dreamers to continue to renew their protections while the legal challenge worked its way through court. The administration would not be required to accept new applications.

Under the administration’s decision announced in September, the Department of Homeland Security would stop accepting applications after Oct. 5, and permits that expired after March 5 would not be renewed.

According to NBC News, Alsup chastised DHS for failing to present any analysis of the damage its order would do to the hundreds of thousands of Dreamers in the country, and he called the government’s argument that the DHS does not and did not have the right to run the program “arbitrary” and “capricious.”

A Justice Department spokesperson said Tuesday after the ruling that the agency still believes it has the power to end the program, which it considers illegal overreach by the previous administration, according to the Associated Press.

Alsup’s ruling came as he considered five lawsuits filed in Northern California. One of the lawsuits was filed by four states, including California, and another was filed by the University of California system, according to the AP.

President Obama created DACA in 2012, and many Republicans have argued since then that the action was unconstitutional. Donald Trump has previously expressed public support for the program in tweets—tweets Alsip cited in his decision, according to the New York Times.

The ruling came the same day as a bipartisan meeting in which Trump and members of Congress sought to work out an immigration deal to decide the fate of the Dreamers. Republicans and Democrats remain divided on the issue, and very little was actually accomplished.

The administration could appeal the ruling, meaning it is possible for the program could still be phased out as scheduled.

You depend on Slate for sharp, distinctive coverage of the latest developments in politics and culture. Now we need to ask for your support. Our work is more urgent than ever and is reaching more readers—but online advertising revenues don’t fully cover our costs, and we don’t have print subscribers to help keep us afloat. So we need your help. If you think Slate’s work matters, become a Slate Plus member. You’ll get exclusive members-only content and a suite of great benefits—and you’ll help secure Slate’s future. Join Slate Plus </s> The University of California sued the Trump administration Friday over its decision to end a program protecting hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation.The lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco includes university president Janet Napolitano as a plaintiff.Napolitano was Homeland Security secretary under the Obama administration and helped implement its Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.She said it was important for the public university system to "stand up for these vital members of the UC community.""They represent the best of who we are - hard-working, resilient and motivated high achievers. To arbitrarily and capriciously end the DACA program, which benefits our country as a whole, is not only unlawful, it is contrary to our national values and bad policy," Napolitano said.The program protected about 800,000 people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or came with families who overstayed visas, including hundreds of thousands of college-age students.The lawsuit said the university will lose students and employees because of President Donald Trump's decision to end the program.The UC system has about 4,000 students who are in the United States illegally, "a substantial number of whom have DACA, as well as teachers, researchers and health care providers who are DACA recipients," the university system said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.An email sent to the U.S. Department of Justice seeking comment was not immediately returned.Fifteen states have sued separately over the president's decision.
Fifteen states and the District of Columbia file suit challenging President Donald Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, arguing, in part, that federal government has reneged on the promise to protect young immigrants who came forward and registered with the government.