You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
A third federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from ending the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides protection against deportation and work permits to hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children, The Washington Post reported.
U.S. District Judge John D. Bates said the Trump administration’s decision to end DACA “was arbitrary and capricious because the Department [of Homeland Security] failed adequately to explain its conclusion that the program was unlawful.” Two other federal judges previously issued injunctions preventing the Trump administration from ending the DACA program in March as it planned, but Judge Bates’s ruling goes further in that it requires the U.S. government to resume processing new DACA applications. The other two rulings only mandated that it consider applications for renewals.
Judge Bates stayed his decision for 90 days to allow Homeland Security officials an opportunity to better explain why they believe the program is unlawful.
A spokesman for the Justice Department, quoted by Politico, said the administration will continue to defend its decision to end DACA. "Today’s order doesn’t change the Department of Justice’s position on the facts: DACA was implemented unilaterally after Congress declined to extend benefits to this same group of illegal aliens. As such, it was an unlawful circumvention of Congress," said the spokesman, Devon O'Malley.
Another federal judge has upheld the Trump administration’s decision to end DACA.
