President Donald Trump's efforts to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was dealt a blow on Friday when a federal judge ordered the administration to fully restore the program designed to prevent the deportation of children of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States by their parents.
In April, U.S. District Judge John Bates gave the Department of Homeland Security 90 days "to better explain its view that DACA is unlawful." Bates said Friday the government's reasoning for ending DACA was "inadequately explained," adding that the Trump administration "cannot rely on the reasons it previously gave for DACA’s rescission, because the Court has already rejected them."
Bates concluded in his ruling:
For the foregoing reasons, the Court again concludes that DHS’s September 2017 decision
to rescind the DACA program, as now explained in the Duke and Nielsen Memos, was both subject
to judicial review and arbitrary and capricious.
Bates continued:
The Court has already once given DHS the opportunity to remedy these deficiencies—either by providing a coherent explanation of its legal opinion or by reissuing its decision for bona fide policy reasons that would preclude judicial review—so it will not do so again.
"A conclusory assertion that a prior policy is illegal, accompanied by a hodgepodge of illogical or post hoc policy assertions, simply will not do," Bates wrote. "The Court, therefore, reaffirms its conclusion that DACA’s rescission was unlawful and must be set aside."
Bates' ruling is the third derailing the Trump administration's crusade against DACA since the president decided to end the program in September 2017. DHS has 20 days to appeal the ruling before DACA must be fully restored, Bates ruled.
On Monday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a statement trashing the court's decision.
"We strongly disagree with the district court’s decision on Friday in the DACA case," Sessions said.
The executive branch's authority to simply rescind a policy, established only by a letter from the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, is clearly established. The Department of Justice will take every lawful measure to vindicate the Department of Homeland Security's lawful recission of DACA.
"We have recently witnessed a number of decisions in which courts have improperly used judicial power to steer, enjoin, modify, and direct executive policy," Sessions added.
Supporters of DACA responded to Sessions on Twitter, offering their "thoughts and prayers" to the administration.
"Womp womp." Pretty much.
"Thoughts and prayers."
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