Supreme Court takes no action on DACA, leaving policy in place for now
The U.S. Supreme Court again chose not to take action on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allows around 700,000 illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children to stay in the country. In November, the Trump administration had asked the Supreme Court to review the program.
The program, which President Trump and Republicans consider to be an example of presidential overreach, was established by President Obama in an executive memorandum in 2012. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a plan to phase out DACA in late 2017, and the program would have ended in March 2018 if federal courts had not blocked it.
Three federal courts have blocked the phase-out, and a decision late last year by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals eventually upheld a ruling blocking it, allowing the administration to appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has twice declined to take up the case, leaving the program in place for now.
Over the weekend, Mr. Trump offered a temporary extension to the program in exchange for funding for a border wall in a deal to reopen the government. Democrats immediately turned down the offer because the deal did not provide a permanent solution for DACA.
Although the court did not choose to address one controversial administration decision Tuesday, they did uphold another: they decided to allow the Trump administration to enforce its ban on transgender troops while litigation over the ban continues, granting the administration a stay on a lower court's decision. The high court split 5-4 in allowing the plan to take effect, with the court's five conservatives greenlighting it and its four liberal members saying they would not have.