Texas v. United States

In Texas v. United States, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a nationwide injunction blocking the Obama Administration from implementing its Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program ("DACA").

In the DACA memo to the heads of federal agencies, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary "set[] forth how, in the exercise of ... prosecutorial discretion, [DHS] should enforce the Nation's immigration laws against certain young people" and listed five "criteria [that] should be satisfied before an individual is considered for an exercise of prosecutorial discretion." The Secretary of DHS further instructed that "[n]o individual should receive deferred action ... unless they first pass a background check and requests for relief ... are to be decided on a case by case basis." Although stating that "[f]or individuals who are granted deferred action . . ., [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services ("USCIS")] shall accept applications to determine whether these individuals qualify for work authorization," the DACA Memo purported to "confer[] no substantive right, immigration status or pathway to citizenship."

At least 1.2 million persons qualify for DACA, and approximately 636,000 applications were approved through 2014. But on Nov. 9, 2015, the Fifth Circuit affirmed an injunction against it.