Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF)

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 4-4 non-decision, failed to act on President Obama’s executive actions on immigration. Today’s ruling creates no new law and does not decide whether DAPA and Expanded DACA are legal. Instead, it leaves in place a lower court block of the initiatives pending further litigation. As a result, the Jane Does, three undocumented Texas mothers who entered the case to defend the initiatives, will be unable to apply for temporary protection from removal. The Jane Does are represented by MALDEF, which argued in the appeal in the U.S. Supreme Court in April.

Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) and the expansion of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) would temporarily protect parents of U.S. citizen and permanent resident children, as well as certain young adults, from removal and permit them to work.

“In the surest indication that the United States Senate majority’s refusal to do its job by confirming a ninth Supreme Court justice has very real and damaging consequences, an evenly divided Court today upheld the Fifth Circuit’s poorly-reasoned decision affirming Judge Andrew Hanen’s preliminary injunction against Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) and the expansion of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA),” stated MALDEF President and General Counsel Thomas A. Saenz...