Today, June 18, 2020, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States blocked the Trump administration from ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, thus preserving protections for hundreds of thousands of DACA beneficiaries in the United States today.
The Supreme Court held that it has the jurisdiction to review the DACA program, which was first announced under President Barack Obama in 2012. The Supreme Court also held that the Trump administration’s decision to terminate the DACA program in 2017 was “arbitrary and capricious,” or illegal, under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) because the government failed to consider all required aspects of the DACA program before ending it. Specifically, the Supreme Court determined that the Trump administration failed to reasonably explain its reasons for determining that the DACA program is illegal and also failed to adequately consider DACA recipients’ reliance on the DACA program.
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