Safe for now
Congressional legislation would end the court fights over so-called Dreamers.
The Trump administration has suffered another court defeat in its illconsidered decision to end protection against deportation for hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who came to this country as children. This one stings even more because it comes from a Republicanappointed judge and orders the administration to take new applicants for the program, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
It was the third time a federal court had struck down President Donald Trump’s September 2017 decision to end DACA, an executive order issued in 2012 by President Barack Obama after Congress had repeatedly failed to take the popular and common-sense step to protect so-called Dreamers from deportation.
The best path forward remains clear. Congress should pass a law now that legalizes the status of teens and young adults who have led lawful and productive lives since being brought to the country illegally as children.
Until then, the judge has ordered the administration to begin taking new applications for DACA, the first time the court had taken that step. He delayed the decision by 90 days to give the Department of Homeland Security more time to better explain the reasons for canceling the program.
Good luck with that. The judge made it clear that the administration’s efforts so far to justify ending DACA fell well short, calling the decision “arbitrary and capricious because the department failed adequately to explain its conclusion that the program was unlawful.”
The judge also said the government provided “meager legal reasoning” to support its decision, saying it was almost entirely based on threats by Texas and a few other states to challenge DACA in court.
The DACA program resumed after two earlier court rulings against Trump, and the Supreme Court’s decision to let appeals go through a regular process. DHS has been renewing already-approved DACA cases. About 700,000 people across the country, including more than 100,000 in Texas, are currently protected from deportation under DACA.
The ruling for the first time offers the opportunity for new DACA applications. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that about 1.3 million people meet DACA eligibility requirements, including 182,000 in Texas.
DACA has become a political football. Both the Trump administration and Congress talk about legislation that would enshrine DACA into law and provide more certainty to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who illegally entered through no fault of their own. But nothing has been done.
You’d think it would be easier than this. A Quinnipiac Poll this month showed that 77 percent of Americans support “allowing undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children to remain in the United States and eventually apply for citizenship.”
The reason that legislation is stalled is because Trump has chosen to hold DACA hostage for his own immigration priorities, including his silly wall. Democratic congressional leaders seemed willing to pay that ransom earlier this year, then backed off when Trump upped his demands to include a reduction of legal immigration into the United States.
Democratic leaders for now seem content to let the court process play out. DACA legislation is on the back burner. That’s a shame.
Legislation would end the court fights over DACA and would unleash tremendous human potential from hundreds of thousands of people who are now hampered only by a decision their parents made and the failure of the American political system.