Justices decline case on DACA

U.S. tried to skip appeals court

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s bid to bypass a federal appeals court and get the justices to intervene in the fate of a program that protects hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation.

The announcement means the case affecting “Dreamers” will have to work its way through the lower courts before any Supreme Court ruling is possible. The case could also become moot if Congress takes action in the meantime. However, efforts to address the issue in Congress have hit an impasse.

The Supreme Court’s decision for now to stay out of the case on the Barack Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was expected by many. It’s unusual for the

Supreme Court to hear a case before a lower appeals court has considered it.

But program supporters hailed the decision as a significant — if only temporary — win. President Donald Trump said the case will now be heard by an appeals court and that “we’ll see what happens from there.”

“You know, we tried to get it moved quickly because we’d like to help DACA. I think everybody in this room wants to help with DACA,” he told visiting governors in Washington. “But the Supreme Court just ruled that it has to go through the normal channels.”

The program has provided work permits and protection from deportation for about 800,000 young people who came to the U.S. as children and stayed illegally.

In September, Trump argued that Obama had exceeded his executive powers when he created the program. Trump announced he was ending the program effective March 5 and gave lawmakers until then to come up with a legislative fix.

But in recent weeks, federal judges in San Francisco and New York have made Trump’s deadline temporarily moot for people who have sought and been granted renewals; the rulings do not extend to people who are applying for the first time. Judges issued injunctions ordering the administration to keep the program in place while courts consider legal challenges to Trump’s termination decision.

Even as immigrant-rights advocates hailed the news, they emphasized that DACA recipients remain in limbo and fretted that lawmakers would be lulled into a false complacency after failing to strike a legislative deal this month.

“We need to give young immigrants who came to our country as children permanent assurance that they are safe here, and we need to give them this peace of mind now,” former Vice President Joe Biden wrote on Twitter. “They shouldn’t have to spend another day living with fear and uncertainty.”

Some senior Republicans said the court’s decision also puts the onus on Congress to act.

“It would be foolish to take, sort of, false confidence or hope that somehow the courts are going to save us from having to make a decision,” said John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate’s second-highest-ranking Republican.

The Supreme Court’s announcement Monday that it wouldn’t step in to the case now means the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will likely be the first appeals court to weigh in on the topic, the step before the case would return to the Supreme Court.

California Attorney General

The Supreme Court’s announcement Monday that it wouldn’t step in to the case now means the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will likely be the first appeals court to weigh in on the topic, the step before the case would return to the Supreme Court.

Xavier Becerra, who joined other states in lawsuits to keep the program in place, cheered the Supreme Court announcement Monday.

“It’s a victory for all Dreamers, certainly a great victory for California,” Becerra said during a phone call with reporters.

The Ninth Circuit has set no date to hear arguments but has given lawyers dates by which they must file briefs.

Trump on Monday didn’t seem to hold out much hope of winning at the Ninth Circuit, criticizing the liberal-leaning court by saying that “nothing’s as bad as the Ninth Circuit.”

Also on Monday, a group backed by the influential Koch network launched a digital ad pushing for permanent relief for Dreamers.

The ad, titled “We Are Patriots,” will run on Facebook, Twitter and Google. It highlights Dreamers as Americans and patriots and incorporates messages of economic and family values as an appeal to conservative audiences.

This is the first ad campaign specifically on the fate of Dreamers by the Libre Initiative, one of a constellation of groups funded through the Koch network. Daniel Garza, president of the Libre Initiative, said the group wants to put community pressure on immigration hard-liners to come around on Dreamers while supporting lawmakers who are working to resolve the issue.