Greater Irving-Las Colinas Chamber Opposing Texas Litigation Against DACA

Irving, Texas. August 7, 2018 –

The number of pro-business groups, including the Greater Irving-Las Colinas Chamber of Commerce, opposing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawsuit seeking a court order ending the Deferred Act for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, continues to increase.

The Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce, the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, the Texas Restaurant Association and eight other business advocacy organizations and companies filed federal court papers late Wednesday officially joining 13 other pro-business groups and corporations who filed a brief 10 days ago asking a judge to reject Paxton’s request to have DACA declared illegal.

The coalition, which includes a dozen chambers of commerce from Irving/Los Colinas to San Antonio and a half-dozen large Texas-based companies, argue that a federal court order dismantling the DACA program will lead to tens-of-thousands of Texas workers identified as so-called Dreamers being deported and billions of dollars deleted from the state’s economy.

Paxton and six other states sued the Trump Administration demanding that DACA be declared illegal. In his lawsuit, Paxton said that the state is open to a compromise that allows those with a valid DACA permit to stay but that no new DACA permits be issued.

Multiple lawyers with some members of the pro-business consortium told The Texas Lawbook this week that Paxton’s “compromise” is a farce because the state attorney general knows that permits for Dreamers expire regularly. If those workers loose the legal protections provided under DACA, they will be subject to immediate deportation.

The new organizations joining the legal fray supporting DACA include American Business Immigration Coalition, Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce, Dallas Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Irving-Las Colinas Chamber of Commerce, the National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders, San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, Texas Opportunity Roundtable, Texas Restaurant Association and VisitDallas, which was formerly the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau.

In addition, two Texas businesses – Ascension Texas, which is the largest non-profit health center in the U.S, and Health Management Systems Holdings (HMS) – signed the legal petition opposing Paxton’s lawsuit.

In the legal brief, the pro-business groups say that the court-ordered end of DACA will have “immediate, irreparable injury” to Texas businesses and cost the state’s economy an estimated $6 billion, tens of thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues.

The federal judge hearing the case, Andrew Hanen of Brownsville, is scheduled to hold a hearing on the matter in Houston on Aug. 8.

To view this story in its original form, please visit TexasLawbook.net.

Presented by, Dallas Business Journal, August 2, 2018

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