FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 7, 2017
Charleston, South Carolina — The American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina, affiliates in nine other state, and the national ACLU filed open records requests today demanding copies of any communications between the Office of the South Carolina and the federal government regarding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program.
This request follows a late June letter, sent by state officials from 10 states, including the Honorable Alan Wilson, Attorney General of SC, to Attorney General Jeff Sessions demanding that the Trump administration end the DACA program. If the administration does not agree by September 5 to end DACA, the states threaten to amend an existing lawsuit in front of Judge Andrew Hanen in Texas to challenge the lawfulness of the program.
The state officials may have a supportive ally in longtime DACA opponent Attorney General Sessions. In January 2017, Sessions said that DACA is “very questionable, in my opinion, constitutionally.” And responding to the states’ June 2017 letter, Sessions said, “I like it that our states and localities are holding the federal government to account and expecting us to do our responsibility to the state and locals, and that’s to enforce the law.”
“The DACA program is a critical lifeline for nearly 800,000 young immigrants who came to this country as children and know the United States as their home,” said Shaundra Scott, Executive Director of ACLU of SC. “Since its creation five years ago, DACA has over 10,000 of young men and women in South Carolina to attend school, support their families, buy homes, begin careers, contribute to their communities, and pursue their dreams.”
As today’s request states, “it remains unclear whether the United States will maintain its defense of the DACA program. [The] statements [from Attorney General Sessions] raise serious questions regarding the United States’ commitment to defending the legality of [the] DACA program against the States’ threatened litigation, as well as questions about possible communications regarding the Texas litigation between the States and members of the Trump administration.”
The ACLU of SC open records request is available here: https://www.aclusc.org/en/cases/freedom-information-act-request-daca
All of the state and national open records requests are available here: LINK
This statement is online here: https://www.aclusc.org/en/press-releases/aclu-south-carolina-requests-communications-between-south-carolina-ag-alan-wilson-and
The ACLU national release is available here: LINK
