An appeals court heard oral arguments Wednesday for a case brought by Texas challenging the legality of DACA, the Obama-era program that  gives temporary protection from deportation and a work permit to hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. 

The case is the latest hurdle in a long legal battle about the program.

Hear Alisa Reznick discuss the hearing with host Steve Goldstein on The Show

First-time DACA applicants were barred when the Trump administration tried to end the program outright in 2017. That was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2020. New applicants were accepted again when President Joe Biden took office, only to be halted once more when a federal judge in Texas ruled the program illegal last year.

ASU student Maria Valeria Garcia has lived in Arizona since she was 4 years old. She was too young to apply for the program when the Trump administration tried to end it. Her application was still being processed when the Texas ruling came last July.

"My two brothers have DACA right now, so I applied with my younger brother at the same time, we got our biometrics the same day, and he was able to get it but I wasn’t," she said. "I've never had DACA, so I know what it's like to be in what we call survival mode."

In court Wednesday, lawyers argued over whether the government had the legal authority to grant deportation protections and work permits with DACA.

Department of Justice lawyer Brian Boynton told the three-judge panel of 5th U.S. Circuit judges that Texas and other states lacked standing to sue because the federal government has discretion to shield immigrants who pose no threat to public safety from deportation. Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone argued the suit did have standing, citing healthcare and other costs he said states had incurred.  

A decision is expected later this year. Garcia traveled to New Orleans to hear the case in person. 

"I heard the oral arguments, but they're talking about my future and my life, and it's up to them, which is really scary because it doesn't look good," she said. "I feel like I lost a lot of hope.”

Reyna Montoya is a DACA recipient from Phoenix who traveled with Garcia to New Orleans. 

"Oftentimes, I feel like milk, like I’m waiting for my expiration date to come," she said. 

Montoya has had DACA since the program was created in 2012. Now her organization, Aliento, helps other DACA recipient and undocumented students, and mixed-status families. It was supposed to be temporary.

“And here we are a decade later, I spent practically all my teens and all my 20s advocating for myself and here we are, seeing broken promise after broken promise,” she said. 

Montoya says instead of dealing with the legal limbo of the courts, she wants Congress to come up with a permanent solution. It’s been more than two decades since the DREAM Act, the piece of legislature that would permanently protect undocumented immigrants like DACA recipients, was first introduced.  

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