Batalla Vidal v. Wolf

Class members can find more information on the class action website.

---

Case Overview

The current DACA landscape is complicated and involves litigation in multiple courts, agency rulemaking, and advocacy to push Congress to pass legislation that would provide a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients. 

Batalla Vidal was the first lawsuit filed to challenge the process by which the Trump administration attempted to end DACA in 2017. We took that fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and won, with the Supreme Court holding that Trump’s attempt to end the program was done unlawfully.   

When the Trump administration tried again to severely limit DACA in July 2020 via the Wolf Memorandum, we returned to court, arguing that Chad Wolf was not lawfully serving as the Acting Homeland Security Secretary when he issued the memo and seeking certification of a nationwide class. In December 2020, the court certified the requested class and vacated the Wolf Memo, allowing the 2012 DACA policy to go back into effect for the first time in three years.  Thanks to our courageous Plaintiffs, tens of thousands of first-time DACA applications were approved. 

However, in July 2021, in a case brought by anti-immigrant states led by Texas challenging the legality of DACA, a Southern District of Texas court again blocked the Department of Homeland Security from processing first-time DACA applications. 

Our Batalla Plaintiffs went back into court in July 2022 to request relief for approximately 92,000 class members whose applications for DACA were pending when the Texas court blocked first-time DACA applications in July 2021. The Eastern District of New York court declined to grant relief, explaining that the July 2021 Texas court order, not the Department of Homeland Security, caused these harms the class members are experiencing.  

Along with our co-counsel and Plaintiffs, we continue to monitor the complex DACA landscape and look for opportunities to bolster the defense of the highly successful and important program.