Democratic AGs sue Trump over DACA

WASHINGTON—Fifteen states and the District of Columbia filed a joint lawsuit against the Trump administration on Wednesday, challenging its decision to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Bob Ferguson and Eric Schneiderman, Democratic state attorneys general for Washington and New York, respectively, spearheaded the effort. They, along with Democratic attorneys general from Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., filed the suit in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of New York. The legal challenge asserts President Donald Trump’s decision to end DACA after six months violates the Constitution’s due process and equal protection clauses. Close to 80 percent of DACA recipients are from Mexico or other Latin American countries. Ferguson argued in a Seattle news conference on Wednesday that Trump’s past negative comments on Mexicans make it clear he’s targeting minorities: “If a majority of Dreamers were Caucasian, does anybody really think the president would have taken the action he took yesterday?” Trump said his decision on DACA gives Congress six months to pass a legislative fix. If Congress does nothing, no current DACA recipient will lose his or her legal status until March 5.