Thursday, March 28, 2024

Supreme Court to decide today whether it will review DACA

The Supreme Court will meet behind closed doors today to decide whether to take up a lower court opinion that temporarily blocked President Trump’s effort to end DACA.

Last month the Justice Department decided to take the rare step of asking the Supreme Court to review the ruling by federal District Judge William Alsup of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, who blocked Trump’s the plan to end DACA and said that administration must resume accepting DACA renewal applications.

Under normal circumstances, the Supreme Court disfavors parties from bypassing lower court proceedings and asking for direct review. The court has not granted a certiorari before judgment since 2004.

The fate of DACA and its roughly 700,000 participants is the subject of heated negotiations in Washington, where Trump, congressional Republicans and Democrats are searching for a way to allow DREAMers to stay in the country while also addressing border security concerns.

The issue before the court was not the legality of the program, but how the Department of Justice went about terminating it. Challengers argue that the decision was “arbitrary and capricious” in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and earlier this week, another federal judge in a separate injuction also temporarily blocked the termination of the program for renewals.

After Alsup’s ruling, Trump made clear his disdain for the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals; the President tweeted, “It just shows everyone how broken and unfair our Court System is when the opposing side in a case (such as DACA) always runs to the 9th Circuit and almost always wins before being reversed by higher courts.”

CNN