Trump crushes Dreamers’ dreams by ending DACA. But DACA didn’t stand a chance in court, either.

It was a Texas attorney general, Gregg Abbott, who sued in federal court in Brownsville, Texas, challenging Barack Obama’s 2014 executive memorandum that attempted to provide temporary legal status for undocumented parents of children born in the U.S. Twenty-five other Republican state attorneys general joined the lawsuit.

Abbott used to brag that his job entailed “going to the office in the morning, suing the federal government, and going home in the afternoon.” He prevailed in Brownsville, blocking the implementation of Obama’s program, thus denying legal status to some 4 million undocumented residents of the U.S. Their children might be citizens or legal residents, but Abbott’s lawsuit ensured that they continue to live in the shadows.

Since filing suit against the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans program (DAPA), Abbott was elected governor and has moved even further to the right. His successor in the AG’s office is Ken Paxton, who is leading a group of Republican state attorneys general in a lawsuit in the same Brownsville federal court, this time attempting to overturn a widely popular Obama executive action that currently defers the deportation of 886,814 young, undocumented residents, allowing them to obtain work permits and driver’s licenses, after paying a $495 fee and passing a background check.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is an odd designation, allowing certain privileges while deportation is deferred for two years. It provides no path to citizenship, nor can people granted DACA status receive any federal financial benefits, such as Social Security, college financial aid or food stamps.

But President Donald Trump came out behind Paxton’s lawsuit with the Sept. 5 announcement that he would end DACA and defer to Congress if they want to extend DACA protections.

If Paxton were to have gone ahead with the lawsuit, it would’ve been left to U.S. Attorney General Sessions to defend those 886,814 Dreamers. And on “Fox and Friends,” Sessions positioned himself as a supporter of that lawsuit against the federal government (which he represents): “I like that our states and localities are holding the federal government to account, expecting us to do what’s our responsibility to the state and locals, and that’s to enforce the law,” he said.

Lawsuit or no lawsuit, maybe DACA was doomed no matter what. On the campaign trail, Trump promised to rescind DACA, but he has been ambivalent since taking office, suggesting that children shouldn’t be held responsible for their parents’ decision to bring them into the country.

Trump successfully dodged a federal lawsuit this way, which White House officials spun to the media as the “least disruptive” path forward. It might be the least disruptive for attorneys, but not the 886,814 Dreamers whose lives have now been thrown into uncertainty and who will be forced back into the shadows.

LOU DUBOSE is The Washington Spectator’s senior political writer.