(Excerpts from American Council on Education News)

• ACE and 60 other higher education groups sent a letter to congressional leaders last week asking lawmakers to quickly pass legislation to permanently protect Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients and Dreamers.
• This follows a letter and full-page ad on the issue in The New York Times July 29 from leaders of major companies, associations, and organizations across the country to the White House and Congress. Both letters strongly urged Congress to pass legislation that creates a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and allows them to remain in the U.S. to work, attend school, or serve in the military without fear of deportation.
• The impetus of this latest show of support was the recent ruling from a federal district judge in Texas that DACA was unlawful and that President Obama exceeded his authority when he created the program by executive order in 2012.
• The ruling does allow for those currently protected by the program to keep their status and allow DACA renewals while the case goes through the appeals process.
• The Texas-led lawsuit, filed in 2018, was a direct challenge to the legality of DACA itself, which counted more than 636,000 active recipients at the end of last year and has considerable bipartisan support on Capitol Hill as well as broad backing from the American public.