Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Monday asked a federal judge to strike down Obama-era deportation protections for immigrants whose parents brought them to the United States illegally as children.

In a motion filed in Brownsville federal court, Paxton asked U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen to follow through on his ruling in August, when Hanen determined that the Obama administration did not have the authority to implement the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

At the time, however, Hanen declined to issue an injunction blocking enforcement of DACA.

In Monday's motion for summary judgment joined by seven other states, Paxton asked the judge to end the program and block the federal government from issuing or renewing any more DACA permits to young immigrants.

Congress, not the president, has the authority to determine federal immigration law, he said.

"Whatever its policy merits, DACA is clearly unlawful, as this court has already held," Paxton's motion said. "Underlying the program is a limitless notion of executive power which, if left unchecked, could allow future presidents to dismantle other duly enacted laws. The court must not allow that to occur."

State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin and policy chairman for the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, called Paxton's continuing bid to end DACA a mean-spirited attack on people who have known no other country.

"America is their home, the United States is their home, Texas is their home. We need to protect them," Rodriguez said. "It's just the right thing to do."

DACA offers deportation protection and renewable work permits to about 700,000 people who were brought to the United States before their 16th birthday, have lived in the country continuously since mid-2007, are in school or graduated or were honorably discharged from the military, have no felonies or significant misdemeanors and are under 30.

"These kids fall into this different category. It is a matter of fairness, and it's just the right thing to do," Rodriguez said.

If Hanen agrees to issue an order ending DACA, he would be in conflict with federal judges in California and New York who have blocked the Trump administration's effort to end the program in 2017. DACA remains in force while appeals in both cases proceed.