As the state of Texas continues to pursue litigation aimed at ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, some members of the Texas business community are pushing back.

A group of Texas Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, businesses and business associations filed a brief Saturday opposing a lawsuit filed earlier this year by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton challenging DACA’s legality.

The businesses and organization argue that rescinding DACA would have “significant negative consequences” on the state’s business and that Texas would lose over $6 billion in economic activity during the next decade. Over 126,000 people in Texas have been granted DACA status since 2012, the brief states.

The program grants work permits and protection from deportation to undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, often called "Dreamers."

The brief was filed by Dallas-based Southwest Airlines and three other companies; the Hispanic Chambers of Commerce in Austin, El Paso, Houston, Midland, San Antonio, Brazoria County and the Rio Grande Valley; the Texas Association of Business; and a coalition of mayors from border towns and cities.

Texas and six other states filed the lawsuit in May, arguing that the Obama administration’s DACA program is unconstitutional as it was enacted without congressional approval. The suit asks the government to stop issuing and renewing DACA permits.

Paxton’s office maintained that the suit is “about preserving proper enforcement of immigration laws and the creation of those laws by our elected Congress."

“The President is not free to override the will of the people and bypass elected representatives just because he disagrees on policy matters,” Marc Rylander, Paxton’s director of communications, said in a prepared statement. “As we’ve made clear time and again, ending new DACA applications along with renewals would allow this unlawful program to phase out over the next two years.”

Dreamers in Texas have created jobs and contribute to the state’s economy as consumers and taxpayers, the brief states. They will contribute an estimated $244.7 million in taxes to the state in 2018, and their purchases have led to an estimated 5,800 manufacturing jobs, according to the brief.

The Texas Business Association is concerned about economic impact of rescinding the program, association CEO Jeff Moseley said.

“Clearly this workforce that has been trained with public dollars in public schools is working and contributing mightily to the Texas economy, and we’d hate to see them given over to another country and another economy to compete against Texas,” Moseley said.

In particular, Dreamers fill needs in the state’s education and healthcare sectors, the brief states. In Texas, 2,000 Dreamers are teachers and about 1,000 are first-responders — police officers, firefighters and emergency health-care workers.

Southwest said in a statement that the airline works hard to foster a diverse and inclusive environment, which includes Dreamers.

“Texas businesses count Dreamers among their valued customers, employees and fellow members of the Texas business community, and Southwest Airlines is no exception,” the company said in a prepared statement.

D-FW has the third-highest population of DACA recipients, behind only Los Angeles and New York, according to data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. At the state level, only California has a higher number of Dreamers than Texas.

In Dallas, DACA-eligible individuals contributed $161 million in taxes and held nearly $700 million in spending power in 2016, according to a study released by the New American Economy Research Fund, a group of mayors and business leaders who support immigration reform.

DACA is one of the top three federal legislative priorities for the Dallas Regional Chamber, said Priscilla Camacho, the chamber’s senior vice president for public policy. Other top priorities are trade and ensuring Texas businesses are not harmed by any changes to NAFTA.

With D-FW's economy booming, Dreamers are filling crucial needs in the STEM fields, construction, financial services and education, Camacho said.

“When you look at the professions and the industries they tend to work in ... they are definitely filling some gaps in our workforce that we want to have that pool of talent available to do,” Camacho said.

Three out of 4 members of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce who answered a survey in February also expressed support for a path to citizenship for DACA recipients.

In another brief filed Saturday, 114 companies from across the U.S. offered their support for DACA. Tech companies were particularly well represented, with Amazon, eBay, Google, Facebook, Lyft, Microsoft, Uber and Twitter participating.

The business community has increasingly weighed in on key issues at both the federal and state level, including the Trump administration's policies on trade, tariffs, climate change and immigration. In Texas, business advocacy groups are leading the fight against a proposed "bathroom bill" that would prevent transgender people from using the bathroom of their choice.