U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Govt Appeal Against DACA

The U.S Supreme Court on Feb. 26 dismissed the Donald Trump administration’s bid to bypass two federal appeal courts’ injunctions that stopped the government from discontinuing the Obama-era DACA program on March 5, AP reported.

Federal judges in San Francisco and New York, in January and February 2018 respectively, made Trump’s deadline to end the program that protected the Dreamers from deportation, and for legislature to come up with an alternative, temporarily moot. The courts issued nationwide injunctions ordering that the DACA policy be kept in place while courts consider legal challenges to its termination. The Trump administration went to the Supreme Court to fight the injunction.

The court’s refusal to hear the bid means that the Deferred Action Childhood Arrival (DACA) program, which affects hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants called “Dreamers,” will now work its way through the lower courts, as is traditionally the process, before any Supreme Court intervention is possible.

Justice Department spokesman Devin O’Malley said: “While we were hopeful for a different outcome, the Supreme Court very rarely grants certiorari before judgment, though in our view, it was warranted for the extraordinary injunction requiring the Department of Homeland Security to maintain DACA. “

He added that they would continue to defend the Homeland Security Department’s “lawful authority to wind down DACA in an orderly manner.”

White House spokesman Raj Shah said in a statement: “We look forward to having this case expeditiously heard by the appeals court and, if necessary, the Supreme Court, where we fully expect to prevail.”

Shah also called the program “unlawful” and said the decisions by lower courts to re-impose the program “that Congress had explicitly and repeatedly rejected is a usurpation of legislative authority.”

He added: “The fact that this occurs at a time when elected representatives in Congress are actively debating this policy only underscores that the district judge has unwisely intervened in the legislative process.”

The administration had argued in September 2017 that former President Barack Obama exceeded his executive powers when he made the program in 2012. The Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene in the matter also relieves the pressure off Congress to come up with an alternative for DACA by the mandated deadline. The Congress had come to a stalemate on the matter two weeks ago.

DACA protects about 700,000 young people who came to the United States as children and stayed on, of which them around 8,000 are said to be of Indian origin.