06/22/2020
DACA IN A NUTSHELL
In the summer of 2012, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced an immigration program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). DACA allows certain undocumented foreign-born persons, who entered the United States as children, to apply for a two-year stay of the deportation process. Those granted relief under DACA are also eligible for authorization to work. Over 700,000 undocumented foreign-born persons have applied for this opportunity.
Put simply, DACA provides a two (2) year reprieve from deportation with eligibility to work during the protection period. President Barack Obama created DACA by executive action.
Shortly after Donald Trump’s election, U.S. Attorney General, Jeff Sessions III, advised DHS to terminate DACA, concluding that it was unlawful. Acting Secretary of DHS, Elaine Duke, acted on Sessions’s advice and terminated DACA.
DACA’s termination was immediately challenged. Those challenging DACA’s termination called the decision to terminate “arbitrary and capricious,” meaning the decision to terminate DACA was impulsive, thoughtless with no legal or otherwise sensible basis. Those challenging DACA’s termination claimed that DACA’s termination violated due process protections guaranteed by the 5th Amendment.
In response, the Trump Administration argued that its decision to terminate DACA was unreviewable by any federal court: that the federal courts had no authority to decide its decision to terminate DACA.
Each federal court hearing the challenge to DACA’s termination rejected The Trump Administration’s argument. One federal court, the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, took a different approach. The DC federal court found that the Trump Administration’s argument to terminate DACA required further explanation. So, it gave the Trump Administration 90 days to re-issue its decision to terminate DACA - this time with a full explanation of DACA’s purported illegality.
DHS Secretary, Kirstjen M. Nielsen, responded to the DC federal court’s order. She declined to disturb or replace her predecessor’s decision. Instead, she merely explained why she thought her predecessor’s decision was sound. She reiterated the same illegality conclusion with no new reasoning.
With nothing meaningful to reconsider, the DC federal court found Neilson’s response woefully inadequate, and ruled against the Trump Administration.
Writing the majority opinion for the U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts agreed with the DC federal court’s opinion. The Trump Administration’s rationale for terminating DACA was impulsive and thoughtless with no legal or otherwise sensible basis - “arbitrary and capricious.”
President Barack Obama’s executive action to provide a two (2) year protection from deportation for undocumented foreign-born persons, who entered the United States when they were children, is lawful. DACA is valid U.S. immigration law.
If you want to know more about DACA and how it works, call me. Let’s talk.