Daca Ruling By U.S. Judge In S.F. To Be Argued Before Appeals Court Tuesday
Daca Ruling By U.S. Judge In Sf To Be Argued Before Appeals Court Tuesday
Bay City News Service
Published 3:25 pm, Monday, May 14, 2018
SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)
The U.S. government's appeal of a ruling by a federal judge in San Francisco that kept protections in place for nearly 700,000 undocumented young immigrants will go before a federal appeals court on Tuesday.
In January, U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco issued a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking the administration of President Donald Trump's cancellation of the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.
The government wants the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn that ruling, and at 1 p.m. Tuesday, a three-judge panel will hear one hour of arguments at the court's Pasadena courthouse.
The panel is expected to issue a written decision at its San Francisco headquarters at a later date. It has no deadline, but has been asked by the U.S. Supreme Court to "proceed expeditiously" with the case.
The DACA program was established by President Barack Obama in 2012. It allows undocumented young people who arrived in the United States as children to apply for delay of deportation and for authorization to work, renewable every two years.
In September, the Trump administration announced it was canceling the program on a phased basis beginning in March. Soon afterward, more than 10 lawsuits challenging the cancellation were filed in federal courts around the country.
Alsup issued the Jan. 12 preliminary injunction in five cases filed in federal courts in San Francisco and San Jose, including one by the University of California and another by the state of California and three other states.
He said the government's action lacked a reasoned explanation and therefore violated the federal Administrative Procedure Act, which prohibits "arbitrary and capricious" actions by executive agencies.
U.S. Justice Department lawyers contend, however, that the cancellation of the program was a "purely discretionary enforcement decision" entirely within the authority of the Department of Homeland Security, and is not subject to judicial review.
The plaintiffs in the five lawsuits have argued in briefs that Alsup was correct and that courts must consider the fact that thousands of people have relied on the DACA program for more than five years.
"Without the injunction, thousands of DACA recipients would have lost their work authorization and deferred action status beginning in March 2018 -- and thousands more the next month, and each succeeding month, until nearly three-quarters of a million young Americans would be shunted back into the shadows of our society," state lawyers wrote in a brief filed with the court in March.
"That would profoundly damage the individual plaintiffs, the states and other entity plaintiffs, our communities, our educational institutions, our businesses and the entire nation," the attorneys wrote.
California was joined in its lawsuit by Maine, Maryland and Minnesota. The other lawsuits ruled on by Alsup were filed by the city of San Jose; six individuals; and Santa Clara County together with the Service Employees International Union.
As of January, the DACA program covered 690,000 people, who are sometimes known as Dreamers. About 223,000 of them live in California, according to state Attorney General Xavier Becerra.
In a separate case filed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, by the state of New York and 15 other states, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis issued a similar nationwide preliminary injunction in February.
The Trump administration is appealing that injunction to the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A hearing in that appeal has not yet been scheduled.
If the appeals courts issue conflicting decisions, that would increase the likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Court will eventually step in and decide the issue.
In the meantime, if one injunction is upheld at the circuit level, it will remain in force nationwide even if the other one is not affirmed, according to Alex Berengaut, a lawyer representing the University of California.
If upheld at the Supreme Court level, a preliminary injunction would remain in effect until a full trial is held in the original district court on whether a permanent injunction should be issued.
The dispute has already gone to the Supreme Court once.
In January, the Justice Department took the unusual step of appealing Alsup's decision directly to the high court, bypassing the normal route through the appeals court.
In February, the Supreme Court in a brief order refused to grant immediate review, but said it assumed that the 9th Circuit would act expeditiously on the intermediate appeal.
Both Alsup's and Garaufis' preliminary injunctions require the Department of Homeland Security to accept applications for renewals of DACA status, but do not require the agency to accept new applications.
Tuesday's arguments before the 9th Circuit can be viewed in live streaming at the court's website at https://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/.
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