US judges weigh fate of programme protecting young immigrants

NEW YORK/ PASADENA, California: A panel of three appeals court judges in California on Tuesday asked the federal government to defend its decision to end a programme protecting from deportation some immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children, who are often referred to as “Dreamers.”

The 9th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals must rule on whether to uphold a lower court’s nationwide injunction ordering the government to keep the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals ( Daca) programme in place while litigation challenging its termination proceeds.

The administration of President Donald Trump announced in September it would scrap the 2012 programme launched by former President Barack Obama, and said it was up to Congress to fi nd a legislative solution.

Several plaintiffs, including the University of California, which enrolls many Daca recipients, sued over the administration’s decision, and in January, U. S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco issued the injunction. A judge in Brooklyn, New York, made a similar finding, and a judge in Washington, D.C., gave the government extra time to explain its reasoning.

U. S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the programme was unlawful when he announced the end of Daca, a position the appeals court judges asked attorneys for the government to explain on Tuesday. — Reuters