Thread: Dismantle DACA Once and for All

This is what we have to look forward to in the coming months.

Trump signals support for pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal aliens

Judge blocks Trump wind-down of Dreamers program

Injunction says feds must keep renewing permits for DACA recipients.

By JOSH GERSTEIN
01/09/2018 10:56 PM EST
Updated 01/09/2018 11:42 PM EST

A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump's effort to shut-down the Obama-era program that provides quasi-legal status and work permits to foreigners who entered the U.S. illegally as children.

In a ruling Tuesday evening, San Francisco-based U.S. District Court judge William Alsup ordered the administration to resume accepting renewal applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as DACA.

Alsup said Attorney General Jeff Sessions' conclusion that the program was illegal appeared to be "based on a flawed legal premise."
Unless halted by a higher court, the ruling will allow former DACA recipients who failed to renew by an October 5 deadline a chance to submit renewal applications and will also require the administration to allow renewal of applications expiring in the future. The decision does not permit new applications for DACA status.

If the judge's order remains in place, it could also roil ongoing legislative efforts on DACA by undercutting the urgency many advocates have expressed, calling for legislation to be passed before large numbers of Dreamers begin losing their protected status in March.

Alsup's nationwide preliminary injunction order came on the same day many of those advocates were at the White House for a negotiating session aimed at hashing out the contours of a bill that would give DACA recipients a reprieve.

Trump's comments during an unusually-protracted photo op led to some confusion about his position, but he later tweeted that any fix on DACA must include significant funding for the border wall that he promised during his campaign.

"As I made very clear today, our country needs the security of the Wall on the Southern Border, which must be part of any DACA approval," Trump wrote.

Alsup didn't reference the meeting in his decision, but he did say there were signs that the administration's decision to wind down DACA was not the product of legal necessity but rather an attempt to improve the White House's bargaining position.

The judge, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, said Trump gave "credence" to that claim when he tweeted last month: “The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration etc. We must protect our Country at all cost!”

Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, which administers DACA, declined to comment.

The Trump Administration could seek a stay of the ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. It's possible the Supreme Court would move to put the decision on hold pending further review. Just last month, the justices voted, 5-4, to halt orders from Alsup requiring the administration to disclose more details about how it arrived at the decision to rescind DACA.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/...a-judge-333143