DACA’s future now rests with Congress and courts
— The U.S. Supreme Court last week refused to consider the Trump administration’s unusual request to overrule a judge who kept alive a program that shields young immigrants from deportation.
The administration went directly to the nation’s highest court after U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco decided in January that beneficiaries of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program could apply for renewals.
The Supreme Court’s refusal to let the administration leapfrog appeals courts means that DACA stays for at least a few months and perhaps until well after midterm elections. In September, the administration said it was ending DACA, calling it an abuse of executive power, but gave Congress until today to develop a legislative fix.
Since it was introduced in June 2012, DACA has given hundreds of thousands of people who came to the country illegally as children twoyear, renewable permits to live and work. To qualify, they needed to have arrived before their 16th birthday, been under 31 in June 2012, completed high school or served in the military, and have clean criminal records.
Nearly 690,000 people were enrolled when the Trump administration said in September that it was ending the program in six months, eight out of 10 from Mexico. Those whose permits expired today had a month to apply for renewal.
Alsup ruled Jan. 9 that the administration failed to justify ending the program and that the plaintiffs — California, Maine, Maryland and Minnesota as well as the University of California — had a good chance of winning at trial. A nationwide injunction forced the administration to resume accepting renewal requests within a week but it did not apply to firsttime applicants.
U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis in New York issued a similar ruling in February.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals put its review of Alsup’s decision on fast track, but legal experts don’t expect a decision until June at the earliest. From there, it is expected to go to the Supreme Court.
In January, the president proposed a path to citizenship for 1.8 million young immigrants as part of an immigration package that included $25 billion for a wall and other border enforcement measures and sharp cuts to legal immigration. The Senate rejected it.