1st appeals court to weigh US Prez’s decision to end DACA
San Francisco, May 15: The Trump administration will try to convince a US appeals court on Tuesday that it was justified in ending an Obamaera immigration policy that shielded hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation.
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals will be the first federal appeals court to hear arguments about President Donald Trump’s decision to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
DACA has protected some 700,000 people who were brought to the US illegally as children or came with families that overstayed visas. A federal judge in San Francisco in January blocked the Trump administration’s decision to end DACA, reinstating the program in a decision that applied nationwide.
US district judge William Alsup rejected the argument that President Barack Obama exceeded his power in implementing DACA and said the Trump administration failed to consider the disruption that ending the program would cause.
“This has become an important program for DACA recipients and their families, the employers who hire them, for our tax treasuries, and for our economy,” the judge said.
The Trump administration said it was forced to act because Texas and other states threatened to sue, raising the prospect of a chaotic end to the program. It wants the 9th Circuit to throw out Alsup’s ruling along with the five lawsuits he considered, including one by the state of California and another by the University of California’s governing body.