By a 2-1 vote, the Federal Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans ruled that President Obama's executive actions announced in November 2014 should continue to be stayed.
Therefore, DAPA, Deferred Action for Parents of Residents or U.S. Citizens, and the expansion of DACA, which would have protected more immigrants who arrived as children, cannot yet be implemented.
In the court decision, detailed in a 70-page documentfederal judges Jerry Edwin Smith and Jennifer Walker Elrod reaffirmed that the implementation of DAPA and the expansion of DACA would cause financial harm, as argued by the 26 states that filed suit to block the immigration measures. Because of this, they voted to maintain the block on the executive actions.
The judge Carolyn Dineen King was the sole dissenting vote and stated in his 53-page ruling that the blocking of the measures by Judge Andrew S. Hanen was in error and that the evidence presented demonstrates that the injunction is not justified to remain in place.
The decision of the Court of Appeals means that the next step, as anticipated, will be to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
This ruling will not affect those who qualify under the current DACA requirements, which remains in effect. It only prevents the implementation of the program's expansion.
