Ninth Circuit Rules Against the Administration on DACA

By Heather Ham-Warren | November 9, 2018

Since the Trump administration announced — over a year ago — its plans to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) amnesty program by March 2018, has been stymied numerous times by activist judges.

Unsurprisingly, on Wednesday a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (based in San Francisco, Calif.) ruled unanimously in favor of the lower court’s preliminary injunction against the administration. The court’s decision comes only a few weeks after the Department of Justice (DOJ) threatened to take the case to the Supreme Court if a ruling was not issued by October 31. On Monday, five days after the deadline, the DOJ did petition the Supreme Court to intervene in all pending DACA cases.

Following the ruling, FAIR President Dan Stein released a statement regarding the ruling and calling on the Supreme Court to consider the case as soon as possible.

“The Supreme Court now has the opportunity to determine both the authority of a sitting president to make his own policies and the limits of executive discretion. Given the gravity of the matter, the Supreme Court must move this case to the top of their docket,” Stein concluded.

Despite the setback, a spokesman for the Department of Justice insisted the administration had the authority to phase out DACA. “While we are disappointed in with today’s ruling, we are pleased that the court has finally acted and that the Supreme Court now can consider our petition for review,” said spokesman Steven J. Stafford. “The Justice Department will continue to vigorously defend its position on this matter, and looks forward to vindicating that position before the Supreme Court.”