"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, Music, Politics, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt and Dr. Alicia Triche, expert brief writer, practical scholar, emeritus Editor-in-Chief of The Green Card (FBA), and 2022 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section Lawyer of the Year. She is a/k/a “Delta Ondine,” a blues-based alt-rock singer-songwriter, who performs regularly in Memphis, where she hosts her own Blues Brunch series, and will soon be recording her first full, professional album. Stay tuned! 🎶 To see our complete professional bios, just click on the link below.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to allow it to end a program introduced by former President Barack Obama that protects thousands of young immigrants who live in the United States without legal status.
FILE PHOTO: Activists and DACA recipients march up Broadway during the start of their ‘Walk to Stay Home,’ a five-day 250-mile walk from New York to Washington D.C., to demand that Congress pass a Clean Dream Act, in Manhattan, New York, U.S., February 15, 2018. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo
The day before congressional elections in which Trump’s harsh anti-immigration rhetoric has taken center stage, the administration urged the justices to throw out three lower court rulings that blocked Trump’s plan to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
The policy has shielded from deportation immigrants dubbed “Dreamers” and given them work permits, though not a path to citizenship.
In a court filing, Solicitor General Noel Francisco said the original DACA policy was introduced by Obama administration officials “even though existing laws provided them no ability to do so.” Now, it is lawful for the Department of Homeland Security to change course, he added.
“It is plainly within DHS’s authority to set the nation’s immigration enforcement priorities and to end the discretionary DACA policy,” Francisco said.
The Justice Department’s move was unusually aggressive in terms of procedure, asking the justices to take action even before intermediate federal appeals courts have ruled on the three lower court rulings. The administration says a final ruling is urgently needed.
If the Supreme Court, which has a 5-4 conservative majority, agrees to hear the case, a ruling would likely come before the end of June.
Poll: Voter enthusiasm surges among U.S. Hispanics
Trump and his conservative political allies have made his hard-line policies toward immigration a key issue ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections that will determine if his fellow Republicans maintain control of Congress.
The Trump administration has argued that Obama exceeded his constitutional powers when he bypassed Congress and created DACA, which offers protections to roughly 700,000 young adults, mostly Hispanics.
The administration is contesting three different district court rulings from judges in California, New York and the District of Columbia that told the administration to continue processing renewals of existing DACA applications while litigation over the legality of Trump’s action is resolved.
Reporting by Tom Hals and Lawrence Hurley, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien
The Administration shows its utter contempt for the Third Branch in two ways:
First, by essentially demanding to skip appealing the District Court orders to the Courts of Appeals, as all other litigants are required to do, they are expressing their contempt for the proper role of the Courts of Appeals;
Second, by publicly indicating that they “own” the Supremes and can get them to short-Circuit the system and do their bidding on demand.
A prudent Court would send Trump packing. Indeed, there is no reason whatsoever to allow the Government to circumvent the legal system here. Given that there are already 750,000 cases in Immigration Court, the 800,000 “Dreamers” aren’t going anywhere. Clearly, the Administration’s claim of “urgency” is totally bogus. Moreover, given the sympathetic circumstances of the Dreamers, there is no reason for the Court to rush on this one. It remains something that Congress eventually will have to solve, no matter how much they might want to avoid doing so.
We’ll see how this one plays out. It will tell us lots about the wisdom, integrity, and courage of the Supremes in the age of Trump.
