U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell rejected arguments by attorneys for the state, seeking to void the temporary injunction already in place that those accepted into the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program are in this country illegally.
He said there is no basis for the state’s argument the Department of Homeland Security has no legal authority to permit them to stay and work, which is what then-Gov. Jan Brewer contended when she issued an executive order in 2012 directing that DACA recipients not be issued licenses.
She said a 1996 state law reserves licenses for those whose presence in this country is “authorized by federal law,” a status the state argued is not conferred by an administrative decision to let DACA recipients stay and work here.
Gov. Doug Ducey is reviewing the ruling and had no comment on possible further appeals, press aide Daniel Scarpinato said.
