Supreme Court Hears Cases to Decide Fate of 700,000 DACA Recipients

Today, the Supreme Court heard a case which will decide the fate of the 700,000 recipients of the DACA program. The case begs to answer the question “Whether the rescission of the DACA program is lawful”. If the Supreme Court votes to uphold its lawfulness the 700,000 DACA recipients would be vulnerable to deportation.

Defending the lawfulness of DACA’s repeal was Solicitor General Noel Francisco. The Solicitor General’s brief stated that “DACA’s rescission is… justified [because] the DACA policy itself is unlawful”, and today in court added that to “adopt this kind of broad and historically unprecedented program, you need to at least locate the authority to do so.” Michael Mongan, Esq., arguing for DACA, remarked how the other side had “not actually identified with any particularity the legal grounds that it’s concerned with”. Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg seemingly agreed how the Government’s defense relies on DACA being illegal, which “leaves substantial doubt about its illegality.”

Justice Sotomayor referenced how President Trump “telling DACA-eligible people that they were safe under him and that he would find a way to keep them here [needs to] be considered before you rescind a policy.” Continuing, she emphasized that “this is not about the law; this is about our choice to destroy lives.” Mr Mongan also touched on the “dramatic harm to hundreds of thousands of young people, to their families, to their employers, to the states, to the economy that would arise from this decision.” Responding, Justice Neil Gorsuch acknowledged they “hear a lot of facts, sympathetic facts,… and they speak to all of us.”