Judge deals potential final blow to Trump's attempt to end DACA protections
- by Lorene Schwartz
- in People
- — Dec 7, 2020
Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn ruled that the Trump administration must restore the Obama-era program that provides deportation protections to immigrants who were brought to the U.S.as children.
"Dreamers have fought so hard for justice".
He set it up to help some of the more than 10 million immigrants who as young people entered the U.S. illegally or overstayed a visa. "The court's order makes clear that fairness, inclusion, and compassion matter", said NY state Attorney General Letitia James, who led a number of state attorneys general in one of the lawsuits against the administration. Most have no memory of or connection with the country where they were born, and many don't speak any language other than English. Under immigration law before the DACA program, most of these young people had no protection against deportation, even though they had lived most their lives in the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that the Trump administration wrongly tried to shut down the program.
As a litigator who challenged the Trump administration's efforts to terminate DACA, Tumlin is aware of the possibilities for rebuttal.
Garaufis, a Clinton appointee, also reiterated a determination he made in his ruling last month: Chad Wolf was not legally serving as acting secretary of DHS when he issued a July memo restricting DACA to those already enrolled in the program and limiting renewals and work permits to just a year rather than two.
Over three years ago, in September 2017, the Trump administration announced that they wanted to end DACA, whose applicants have been widely nicknamed the "Dreamers".
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The high court said the administration didn't adequately consider its options or the implications before rescinding DACA. The Wolf memo also purported to apply these changes retroactively to all applications submitted after the June 18 - the date of the Supreme Court decision.
According to the ruling, Wolf was unlawfully installed in his position, indicating that his memo on slicing DACA benefits was invalid. "In light of the vacatur, all parties agree that the DACA program is now governed by its terms as they existed prior to the attempted rescission of September 2017", Garaufis wrote in the ruling.
The DHS must post public notice of the changes to restore the program as it was "prominently" on the agency's website by Monday and must provide individual notice to current DACA recipients by mail by December 31.
The National Immigration Law Center (NILC) said in a series of tweets that while the ruling was a "major victory for immigrant youth, led by immigrant youth", the group looks forward to "working with the incoming Biden administration to create a permanent solution for immigrant youth and communities".
Joining James in co-leading the coalition of attorney generals was Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson.
