The Trump administration planned to end the Obama-era executive order known as DACA on March 5 unless Congress passed more permanent legislation, but the Supreme Court bought more time for DACA.

District courts out of California and New York froze the Trump decision earlier in February saying it was an “arbitrary” reason for ending the executive order, which under the Administrative Procedures Act disallows any administration from creating or tearing down a policy without “sound legal reason.”

The White House press secretary Raj Shah said in a statement DACA was “clearly unlawful,” and the decisions from the lower courts were a “usurpation of legislative authority.”

“We look forward to having this case expeditiously heard by the appeals court and, if necessary, the Supreme Court, where we fully expect to prevail,” Shah said.

Following these statements, the Trump administration made a request to the Supreme Court to appeal the California District Court’s decision on the grounds that a district court can’t make decisions that affect the entire country.

The Supreme Court denied this request effectively allowing the litigation to go through the lower courts first.

The implications of this are still uncertain; DACA will stay intact as long as the lawsuits are being litigated, but after the attorney general announced the deadline, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, stopped accepting new DACA applications. 

People who currently have DACA status will still be able to apply for their renewed status because of the injunction. 

As the deadline nears, 100 DACA recipients per day have been losing their work permits and deferred status, which only puts more pressure on Congress to act, according to Time Magazine.

Reforms to the immigration system have been a growing concern for Congress over the last thirty years; this is true now more than ever as lawmakers are unable to come to a solution over the fate of over 800,000 “Dreamers” who could face deportation.

The immigrants in question are here on the basis of the Obama-era policy known as DACA or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. This policy allowed children below the age of 16 who were brought here by their parents before June 15, 2007 to temporarily stay in the U.S. until congress decided what to do with them.

Children who are allowed to stay, often called “Dreamers,” are unable to apply for permanent residency or citizenship but are able to enroll in college, get jobs and obtain valid identification like driver’s licenses. This temporary status means DACA recipients must reapply every two years to renew their status and is why ending the policy would lead to deportations.

Opponents have compared DACA to previous reforms in history like the ones passed by Reagan known as the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

Since its passage, immigration laws have been unchanged despite multiple attempts at new reforms. This is a result of the 1986 changes being seen as ineffective by many and immigration reform slowly becoming a more divisive issue.

Dirk Deam, senior lecturer in political science, said this shift away from bipartisan immigration reform didn’t really start until the Bush era and led to a complete lack of action by Congress on the issue.  

“Obama tried for immigration reform and he hit the Republican wall; so Obama acted unilaterally and passed an executive order,” Deam said.

Deam further explained that executive orders are possible because laws and statutes all have room for “discretion” when interpreting them. With DACA, Obama said current immigration laws should be enforced on a status of priority.

Children who met the criteria under DACA were put as the last priority. This means DACA essentially just pushed back any decision on deportation of an individual with DACA status.

“This is where the phrase deferred action comes from in DACA,” Deam said.

The recent urgency to have congressional action is due to President Trump’s declaration that, without changes made by congress, DACA would be phased out by March 5.

Supporters of DACA find this prospect troubling as many, if not all, of the Dreamers are assimilated into society and deportation would entail tearing apart communities. “Dreamers contribute massively to our culture and economy. To deny or deport them would be to call into question all immigration,” Deam said.

Since then, two district courts have ruled the March 5 deadline has to be pushed back following judges concerns that Trump undid the Obama policy “arbitrarily.”

Deam explained any administration, including Trump’s, has to follow the Administrative Procedures Act when creating or undoing policy. This act says laws must be done or undone with a comment period, with public hearings and with sound legal reason.

“When Obama created DACA he followed the APA and now it is being undone with no respect to the APA or immigration law,” Deam said.

Opponents of this decision have argued that Obama’s interpretation of the law was outside of the “discretion” of the law to begin with, and Trump has even said himself, “what is done by the pen, can be undone by the pen.”

Editor’s note: This article has been updated due to an error. Though the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, stopped accepting new DACA applications, people are still able to renew their DACA application. The Daily regrets this error. 

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