The state of Texas will be back in federal court Thursday in its latest effort to dismantle legal protections for tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants who call Texas home.
At stake is the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which allows qualified applicants who were brought into the U.S. as children before they were 16 to receive a renewable, two-year work permit and a reprieve from deportation.
By the end of 2022, there were more than 95,000 DACA recipients in Texas, the second-highest total behind California’s 165,000. There are more than 580,000 in the country, according to statistics from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.