A Texas federal judge has temporarily blocked President Obama’s executive action on immigration, suspending the White House plan to spare up to 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation so a collection of 26 states can pursue a lawsuit to permanently halt the unilateral directive.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen wrote in an opinion late Monday that no law gave the Obama administration the authority “to give 4.3 million removable aliens what the Department of Homeland Security itself labels as ‘legal presence.’”