Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-587_5ifl.pdf
Page Number: 9.0

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DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY v. 
REGENTS OF UNIV. OF CAL. 
Opinion of the Court 

recipients.

Before  the  DAPA  Memorandum  was  implemented,  26
States, led by Texas, filed suit in the Southern District of 
Texas.  The  States  contended  that  DAPA  and  the  DACA 
expansion violated the APA’s notice and comment require-
ment, the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), and the
Executive’s duty under the Take Care Clause of the Consti-
tution.  The District Court found that the States were likely
to succeed on the merits of at least one of their claims and 
entered a nationwide preliminary injunction barring imple-
mentation  of  both  DAPA  and  the  DACA  expansion.    See 
Texas v. United States, 86 F. Supp. 3d 591, 677–678 (2015).
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Cir-
cuit affirmed the preliminary injunction.  Texas v. United 
States, 809 F. 3d 134, 188 (2015).  In opposing the injunc-
tion, the Government argued that the DAPA Memorandum 
reflected an unreviewable exercise of the Government’s en-
forcement discretion.  The Fifth Circuit majority disagreed.
It reasoned that the deferred action described in the DAPA 
Memorandum  was  “much  more  than  nonenforcement:  It 
would affirmatively confer ‘lawful presence’ and associated 
benefits on a class of unlawfully present aliens.”  Id., at 166. 
From this, the majority concluded that the creation of the 
DAPA program was not an unreviewable action “committed 
to agency discretion by law.”  Id., at 169 (quoting 5 U. S. C. 
§701(a)(2)).

The majority then upheld the injunction on two grounds.
It first concluded the States were likely to succeed on their 
procedural claim that the DAPA Memorandum was a sub-
stantive rule that was required to undergo notice and com-
ment.  It then held that the APA required DAPA to be set 
aside because the program was “manifestly contrary” to the
INA, which “expressly and carefully provides legal designa-
tions allowing defined classes” to “receive the benefits” as-
sociated  with  “lawful  presence”  and  to  qualify  for  work