politics

Oregon, Washington Sue Trump Administration Over DACA Decision

By OPB Staff (OPB)
Portland, Oregon Sept. 6, 2017 7:19 p.m.

Oregon and Washington have joined a coalition of other states to sue the Trump administration over its plan to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Sixteen attorneys general filed a federal lawsuit in New York Wednesday. The suit argues that the Trump administration decision to rescind DACA violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

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The president has given Congress six months to come up with an alternative to DACA, a creation of President Barack Obama that gives people brought to the United States as children a path to stay in the country to work or study.

Some 800,000 people have received the special status, including more than 11,000 in Oregon.

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Related: Oregon DACA Recipient Says If Deported: "I Wouldn't Know How To Be Myself"

At a rally for DACA on Tuesday, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said the repeal was “cruel” and promised action.

“We are coordinating real time to take all appropriate legal action to protect the interest of our state and these exceptional young people,” she said.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who has tangled with the Trump administration in court over a proposed ban on travelers from some Muslim-majority countries, said Wednesday that race played a role in the decision to end DACA, according to a Seattle Times account.

"If 'DREAMers' were white, does anybody really think the president would have acted on DACA the way he did?” he said at a press conference announcing the suit.

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

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