As many as 15 US states and the District of Columbia have filed a lawsuit in New York to block President Donald Trump’s plan to end the programme protecting young immigrants from deportation - Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA).

The suit was first announced by Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who called Trump’s act ‘a dark time for our country’.

The groups laid out five different constitutional arguments against Trump’s move, saying it was motivated by discriminatory reasons, that it violated due process by being ‘fundamentally unfair,’ and that it violated laws that dictate procedures for federal regulations, reports the ANI.

The lawyers noted that most DACA recipients are of the Mexican origin and devote a whole section to inflammatory statements Trump has made about Mexicans, including his attacks on a federal judge of Mexican descent, CNN reported.

US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA will end in six months to give the Congress time to find a legislative solution for the immigrants.

‘As President Trump’s statements about Mexico and those with Mexican roots show, the President has demonstrated a willingness to disparage Mexicans in a misguided attempt to secure support from his constituency, even when such impulses are impermissible motives for directing governmental policy,’ the Attorney General wrote.

Trump’s statements as a candidate and President have been used against him in previous lawsuits, most notably challenges against his travel ban earlier this year.

The lawsuit also devotes a section to Texas, the state that pushed Trump to end the programme, using a section to describe Texas as ‘a state found to have discriminated against Latinos/Hispanics nine times since 2012.’