A federal judge in South Texas has temporarily blocked President Barack Obama‘s executive action on immigration, giving a coalition of 26 states time to pursue a lawsuit that aims to permanently stop the orders.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen’s decision late Monday puts on hold Obama’s orders that could spare from deportation as many as five million people who are in the U.S. illegally. Hanen wrote in a memorandum accompanying his order that the lawsuit should go forward and that without a preliminary injunction the states would “suffer irreparable harm in this case.”