Washington, May 2 (IANS): Seven US states led by Texas has sued President Donald Trump's administration in an attempt to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme, the media reported.
The lawsuit - joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia - on Tuesday asserted that the former Obama administration overstepped its authority when it created the programme, which allows individuals who were brought to the US illegally as children to remain in the country, without congressional approval, The New York Times reported.
"The executive unilaterally conferred lawful presence and work authorisation on otherwise unlawfully present aliens, and then the executive used that lawful-presence ‘dispensation' to unilaterally confer US citizenship," the lawsuit said.
It calls on the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas to "immediately rescind and cancel all DACA permits currently in existence because they are unlawful", or at a minimum to block the government "from issuing or renewing DACA permits in the future, effectively phasing out the program within two years".
Trump, too who wants to get rid of DACA, had ordered an end to the programme in September and called on Congress to pass a replacement law, though it has not been done so.
The repeal has been delayed by legal challenges.
Last week, a federal judge in Washington ruled that the government must keep the programme in place and start accepting applications again, unless it can provide a stronger legal justification for abandoning it.
Federal judges have also ordered the administration to preserve DACA, reports The New York Times.
"Three activist federal judges have blocked the federal government from canceling DACA," Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, whose office filed the lawsuit, said on Tuesday.
"That means that unelected federal judges are forcing the Trump administration to leave an unlawful program in place indefinitely as legal challenges drag on."
The lawsuit drew condemnation from the Texas Democratic Party whose chairman, Gilberto Hinojosa, said Paxton's "cruel anti-immigration agenda will rip over 124,000 Texans away from their families and jeopardise our economy".