9th Circ. Shouldn't Have Halted Rescission of DACA
In Law360, litigation attorney Steven Gordon analyzes the Regents of the University of California v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security decision—the first appellate ruling on the validity of the much debated effort to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
Last week, the Ninth Circuit affirmed a nationwide injunction that bars the Trump Administration from phasing out DACA, which provides two-year, renewable deportation protections for about 690,000 unauthorized immigrants. In his article, Mr. Gordon acknowledges the obvious sympathy people have for "Dreamers," who were brought to this country as children, as well as the humanity and soundness of the Regents' views. However, he states that these views should not—from a legal standpoint—influence the outcome of this case, since DACA is simply an agency policy of Homeland Security (DHS) and that DHS' reasons for adopting or rescinding the policy are immune from judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
Mr. Gordon concludes that because the Trump Administration's actions are "facially legitimate and readily explicable for reasons other than racial animus," they cannot be successfully challenged on equal protection grounds.