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Supreme Court nixes Trump’s ending DACA: a big win for “Dreamers”

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The Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 to nix President Donald Trump’s effort to remove DACA, the program that allowed nearly 650,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children to stay in the country. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the liberal justices in the winning vote.

This a big win for “Dreamers” but the court ruling leaves open the possibility that Trump could come back again with another legal challenge.

This was Trump’s initial reaction to the ruling on Twitter: “Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn’t like me?”

The Washington Post:

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to dismantle the program protecting undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, a reprieve for nearly 650,000 recipients known as “dreamers.”

The 5 to 4 decision was written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and joined by the court’s four liberals. It was the second, stunning defeat this week for the Trump administration, as the Supreme Court begins to unveil its decision in marquee cases.

It will likely elevate the issue of immigration in the presidential campaign, although public opinion polls have shown sympathy for those who were brought here as children and have lived their lives in this country. Congress repeatedly has failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

President Trump responded to the decision by tweeting his displeasure and turning it into a call for his reelection, with a specific focus on gun-rights supporters: “These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives. We need more Justices or we will lose our 2nd. Amendment & everything else. Vote Trump 2020!”

The Los Angeles Times:

WASHINGTON — In a striking rebuke to President Trump, the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected his plan to repeal the popular Obama-era order that protected so-called Dreamers, the approximately 700,000 young immigrants who were brought to this country illegally as children.
Led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the court called the decision to cancel the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, arbitrary and not justified. The program allows these young people to register with the government and, if they have a clean criminal record, to obtain a work permit. At least 27,000 of these DACA recipients are employed as healthcare workers.

Trump had been confident that the high court, with its majority of Republican appointees, would rule in his favor and say the chief executive had the power to “unwind” the policy.

The decision follows several other defeats this week for Trump. On Monday, the court rejected the Trump administration’s position that a 1964 civil rights law should not protect LGBTQ workers from discrimination, and separately it sided with California in a legal battle over so-called sanctuary laws.

And:

The DACA case was perhaps the year’s biggest immigration dispute at the high court.

Today’s decision is similar to last year’s ruling that blocked Trump’s plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

On Thursday, Roberts spoke for the same 5-4 majority, and his opinion follows the same reasoning. The chief justice said Trump’s Homeland Security officials did not put forth a valid reason for revoking the DACA program, just as he said it did not provide a valid reason for adding the citizenship question.

“We do not decide whether DACA or its rescission are sound policies,” Roberts wrote. “We address only whether the agency complied with the procedural requirement that it provide a reasoned explanation for its action. Here the agency failed to consider the conspicuous issues of whether to retain forbearance and what, if anything, to do about the hardship to DACA recipients. That dual failure raises doubts about whether the agency appreciated the scope of its discretion or exercised that discretion in a reasonable manner. The appropriate recourse is therefore to remand to DHS so that it may consider the problem anew.”

It is a remarkable turn of events for Roberts and the court. Two years ago, the chief justice wrote a 5-4 opinion deferring to Trump and upholding his travel ban on foreign visitors and immigrants. Now he has switched sides in several momentous cases and blocked Trump’s action as unwarranted and unjustified.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh all voted to uphold Trump’s plan.

The decision is likely to prove popular with the American public. Opinion polls over the past year have found that three-fourths of Americans believe the Dreamers should be granted a permanent status and allowed to become citizens. Both Republicans and Democrats have voiced support for them.

A few things about the ruling:

1. Trump can come back and try again with new arguments. The window is closed for any new legislation this session. Will the administration try again and, in particular, mount another legal challenge before November to turn it into a campaign issue? And would this issue resonate given the wide support the DACA program enjoyed in numerous polls?

2. Some news reports have noted that in his ruling Roberts seemed to swipe at Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

3. Some legal pundits have long contended that one of Roberts’ prime concerns has been the Supreme Court’s legacy and image and suggested he might rule with the liberal justices if a case threatened the Court’s tarnished image as a neutral arbiter. If the DACA ruling had gone the other way it would have bolstered the view that the court is “Trump’s court.”

A sampling of reaction on Twitter: