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  • PRESS RELEASE
    18, June 2020
    LatinoJustice’s Statement on U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA)

LatinoJustice’s Statement on U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 18th, 2020

Contact: Elianne Ramos; Chief Communications Officer; [email protected]; 212.739.7513

LatinoJustice’s Statement on U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA)

New York, NY – The United States Supreme Court this morning released its decision on the Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California  cases striking down the Trump administration’s bungled attempt to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Approvals program in fulfillment of  his campaign promise to end DACA. The Department of Homeland Security, as part of the administration’s new immigration enforcement policy to “no longer exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement,” announced in September 2017 that DACA would be rescinded.

The Supreme Court today decided that this case is judicially reviewable and that the DHS decision to wind down the DACA policy was improper. The majority opinion says that the decision to terminate DACA was arbitrary and capricious because the acting secretary’s decision to terminate the program discussed the legality of the benefits associated with DACA but did not discuss forbearance – the decision to defer removal, or whether there was legitimate reliance on the DACA memorandum.

José Pérez, Deputy General Counsel at LatinoJustice PRLDEF released the following statement on today's decision:

“While this is good news, it does not mean that the fight has been won, or that the battle is over. Congress still needs to do their job, put aside partisan differences, and immediately act and pass the DREAM Act and other comprehensive and humane immigration reform so immigrants can come out of the shadows. The 700,000-plus Dreamers and other immigrants who have received deferred status deserve the opportunity to stop living in fear and looking over their shoulder. They should continue making their invaluable contributions, as they have so ably demonstrated during the current COVID pandemic.”

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BACKGROUND:

Last year, LatinoJustice PRLDEF joined with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in filing an amicus brief in the case. Here is an excerpt from our brief:

"The Trump administration argues that to rescind a program that protects from removal 700,000 persons brought to the United States as children is not subject to judicial scrutiny even if the rescission was motivated by racial animus. That is a novel argument meaning that federal courts could not review DACA’s rescission even if the administration had formally stated that the rescission was motivated by a desire to remove as many Latinos as possible from our country. Nor could the courts review an official federal policy to deport only non-citizens of color.

The Fifth Amendment (still) protects all persons living in the United States. For the equal protection component of that Amendment to mean anything, racial discrimination cannot infect federal policy judgments about whether to deport hundreds of thousands of individuals who came to the United States as children.”

Link to the brief:

https://www.naacpldf.org/wp-content/uploads/18-587-Amicus-Brief-of-NAACP-Legal-Defense-Educational-Fund-Inc.-et-al..pdf

About LatinoJustice

LatinoJustice PRLDEF works to create a more just society by using and challenging the rule of law to secure transformative, equitable and accessible justice, by empowering our community and by fostering leadership through advocacy and education. For more information about LatinoJustice, visit www.latinojustice.org