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Press Release

Press Release  AG Healey Files Brief in U.S. Supreme Court to Preserve DACA and Protect Dreamers

For immediate release:
9/30/2019
  • Office of Attorney General Maura Healey

Media Contact   for AG Healey Files Brief in U.S. Supreme Court to Preserve DACA and Protect Dreamers

Meggie Quackenbush

BostonAttorney General Maura Healey joined a coalition of 16 attorneys general in filing a brief in the United States Supreme Court in an ongoing lawsuit to protect Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The lawsuit, filed in September 2017, will be heard by the Supreme Court this fall and argues that the Trump Administration’s attempt to revoke all Dreamers’ access to DACA status was unlawful.

“Ending DACA would be devastating for our economy, for our communities, and for hundreds of thousands of young people who call America their home,” said AG Healey. “We will continue to fight this cruel, unnecessary, and illegal act from the Trump Administration.”

The coalition of attorneys general filed this lawsuit in September 2017 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York challenging the Trump Administration’s decision to terminate DACA. In February 2018, the Court issued a nationwide preliminary injunction that halted DACA’s termination. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case, together with parallel challenges to DACA’s termination filed in federal courts in California and the District of Columbia.

In today’s brief, the coalition of attorneys general defend the lower federal courts’ injunctions barring the Trump Administration’s attempt to end DACA as arbitrary and capricious. 

Since 2012, DACA has benefitted 800,000 young people across the country by allowing them to work legally, acquire driver’s licenses, open bank accounts, access lines of credit, purchase homes and cars, attend college, pay taxes, and obtain employer-based health insurance. Massachusetts is home to more than one million immigrants, including nearly 20,000 DACA-eligible residents. If the Trump Administration’s rollback of DACA is upheld, these young people will face immediate risks, including the loss of these benefits and possible deportation.

Joining AG Healey in filing this brief and the lawsuit are the attorneys general of Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the Governor of Colorado.

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Media Contact   for AG Healey Files Brief in U.S. Supreme Court to Preserve DACA and Protect Dreamers

  • Office of the Attorney General 

    Attorney General Maura Healey is the chief lawyer and law enforcement officer of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
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