Supreme Court rules for ‘Dreamers,’ rejects Trump’s repeal attempt
WASHINGTON — In a striking rebuke to President Donald 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 and be assured they will not be deported. At least 27,000 DACA recipients are employed as health care 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.
But the chief justice joined with the four liberals to rule that Trump and his administration had failed to give an explanation for why it was repealing a popular and widely lauded program, a violation of federal law.
But the justices did not decide that Trump’s repeal violated the Constitution or immigration law. Instead, the majority blocked the repeal on the grounds that Trump’s team had failed to explain its rationale as required by the Administrative Procedure Act. Adopted in the 1940s in response to the New Deal and the massive growth of government, the act requires officials to explain and justify abrupt changes in regulatory rules.
Usually, the chief justice and the court’s conservatives argue for deferring to the federal government on regulatory matters, particularly in an area like immigration. But that policy of deference also requires the justices to have confidence in the decisionmaking process within the government.
Thursday’s decision is the latest sign that Roberts, who spent much of January presiding over Trump’s impeachment trial in
the Senate, may be growing increasingly skeptical about decisions that come out of the Trump administration.
The decision made for an unusually bad week for Trump and conservatives.
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 protecting immigrants. The justices also turned down a series of appeals urging the court to expand gun rights.
Until this week, conservatives had been confident that they had a lock on the high court with Trump’s two court appointees — Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh. But Gorsuch wrote Monday’s 6-3 opinion upholding civil rights for LGBTQ employees. And Roberts has now joined the liberals to knock down one of Trump’s signature immigration initiatives.
“Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn’t like me?” Trump tweeted Thursday.
Trump dismissed the ruling as “highly political” and “seemingly not based on the law,” and used it as an opportunity to campaign for his reelection. “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.”
He said it underscored the need to appoint more conservatives to the Supreme Court and repeated his promise to only appoint future justices from a list of candidates handpicked and vetted by conservative groups.
The fight over DACA already promised to play big in the 2020 election, with presumed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign emphasizing his commitment to providing a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers as it seeks to mobilize Latino voters in key battleground states such as Arizona.
“The Supreme Court’s ruling today is a victory made possible by the courage and resilience of hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients who bravely stood up and refused to be ignored,” Biden said in a statement. “As president, I will immediately work to make it permanent by sending a bill to Congress on day one of my administration.”
Democratic leaders said Thursday that they believe the court’s decision — and Trump’s reaction to it — will motivate Latino voters even more.
“If Donald Trump wins in November, he will end DACA,” said Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez, in a call with reporters. “For every voter who cares about Dreamers, please understand this: The future of Dreamers depends 100% on the outcome of the November election . ... We can’t lift our foot off the gas, and we won’t.”
The DACA case, whose outcome affects the lives and careers of hundreds of thousands of young people, is the most far-reaching immigration dispute to reach the high court during Trump’s tenure.
The decision, in Department of Homeland Security vs. Regents of the University of California, 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 Department did not put forth a valid reason for revoking the DACA program, just as he said Trump’s Commerce Department 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.”