White House restricts DACA despite ruling
In apparent defiance of court orders, the Trump administration has reaffirmed its cutbacks to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for young undocumented immigrants: No new DACA applicants will be accepted, and current participants can renew their legal status for only one year instead of two.
Supporters of the program have asked a federal judge in Maryland to hold the administration in contempt of court.
The Supreme Court ruled June 18 that President Trump had acted illegally in September 2017 when he repealed DACA, the program established by President Barack Obama in 2012. It grants deportation reprieves and work permits to immigrants who were brought to the U.S.
without documentation before turning 16, have attended school or served in the military and have no serious criminal record.
Trump claimed Obama had no legal authority to exempt a category of undocumented immigrants from deportation. In the court’s 54 ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts said Trump had failed to offer a rational explanation for his order or consider its impact on more than 700,000 migrants who relied on the program, or their 200,000 U.S.citizen children.
The court did not prohibit Trump from making another attempt to eliminate DACA, but ordered it reinstated in the meantime. The administration had stopped accepting new DACA applicants since September 2017 but had been required by lower courts to allow renewals by current participants.
The Supreme Court ruling implied, but did not expressly state, that officials must resume accepting new applications. U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm of Baltimore took that step July 17, ordering the Department of Homeland Security to restore the program to its status before Trump’s action, including new applications.
On July 29, however, Chad Wolf, Trump’s acting secretary of Homeland Security, issued a memo that maintained the administration’s ban on new DACA applicants and allowed current participants to renew their status for just one year. Wolf also said DACA participants would no longer be allowed to leave the United States and return legally, apart from “exceptional circumstances.” He did not mention Grimm’s order.
“The existence of a program like DACA may send mixed messages about DHS’s intention to consistently enforce immigration laws,” and “may encourage individuals to take a perilous journey to this country, needlessly endangering children,” Wolf said in his memo.
Then on Monday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which oversees DACA, published guidelines for its employees to enforce Wolf ’s restrictions, again without referring to the federal judge’s order to restore the program. Grimm, meanwhile, is considering requests by immigrants and their supporters to find the administration in contempt and order immediate compliance.
Federal officials have “demonstrated their intent to defy the clear mandate of the Supreme Court,” as well as lower courts, the immigrants’ lawyers said in a filing Aug. 14. They said officials “have dared this court (or any other) to enforce their orders.”
Pratheepan Gulasekaram, an immigration law professor at Santa Clara University, said the administration’s response to the court rulings “suggests that the executive branch is above the law.”
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, DSan Jose, chairwoman of the House Judiciary
Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship, had an equally scathing assessment.
“Following the Supreme Court’s decision, the president had the opportunity to do the right thing for America’s ‘Dreamers,’ ” Lofgren said Tuesday, using supporters’ name for DACA participants. “But, instead, his administration chose chaos over compassion.”
The government agencies did not respond to requests for comment.
“The had opportunity the right the president thing to for do America’s ‘Dreamers.’ But, instead, his administration chose chaos over compassion.”
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, DSan Jose