In a 5-4 decision on Thursday (June 18), the Supreme Court ruled to block Donald Trump’s plans to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, justices decided that the Trump administration’s reasoning for rescinding the Obama-era program was not legally justified.
“The dispute before the Court is not whether [Department of Homeland Security] may rescind DACA. All parties agree that it may,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the Court’s majority opinion. “The dispute is instead primarily about the procedure the agency followed in doing so.”
However, the ruling does not prevent Trump from working to end the program again in the future.
“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,” Trump tweeted Thursday in response (June 18). “We need more Justices or we will lose our 2nd. Amendment & everything else. Vote Trump 2020!”
According to The Hill, DACA protects almost 700,000 young undocumented immigrants from deportation, with cases dating back to the Obama administration. The program makes noncitizens who arrived in the United States as children eligible to obtain work permits, driver’s licenses and health insurance and allows for a renewable two-year deferral from deportation.
In the minority dissenting opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas claimed that DACA was “unlawful from its inception.”
“The Court could have made clear that the solution respondents seek must come from the Legislative Branch. Instead, the majority has decided to prolong DHS’ initial overreach by providing a stopgap measure of its own,” he wrote. “In doing so, it has given the green light for future political battles to be fought in this Court rather than where they rightfully belong — the political branches.”
Last fall, Trump claimed that the Supreme Court should not be allowed to review his plan to rescind DACA. This argument was also thrown out by the Court majority on Thursday (June 18).