The Supreme Court voted 4-4 Thursday to block President Obama’s plan to shield as many as four million undocumented immigrants from deportation. While some say it’s a win for law-abiding citizens, others fear it may tear families apart.
The ruling left in place a lower court’s decision to block the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, or DAPA program. Benita, who doesn’t want to give her last name, is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. She’s a single mother of two American citizen children and has been working in the U.S. for 20 years. Her attorney, Marisol Perez, translates.
"The truth is I am fearful. I’m afraid that because my children are here, citizens of the United States, if they deport me, I will have to leave them here and me go back to my country," Benita said is Spanish.
Nina Perales is vice president of litigation for MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund based in San Antonio. She says immigrants who are parents of U.S. citizen children, or permanent resident children, would have benefited from this initiative.
"Now that the initiative remains blocked, pending a final resolution, they go on as they have been going on, all along, which is living in fear, that they will be, on any particular day, caught up into the immigration system, separated from their children, and unable to stay with their families," Perales said.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott is praising the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on immigration. Abbott says justices made the right call to deny President Obama "the ability to grant amnesty contrary to immigration laws."
He calls the victory a win for all law-abiding Americans, including immigrants.
