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By LEAH GOLDBERG and AUSTEN BUNDY
Cronkite News
A federal judge’s pointed attack on the Trump administration’s attempts to do away with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program drew sharp, and sharply differing, reactions Wednesday from Arizona officials and advocates.
U.S. District Judge John Bates called the decision to end DACA “arbitrary and capricious, and ordered the White House on Tuesday to completely restore the program – but delayed his order for 90 days, giving the government time to respond.
“Neither the meager legal reasoning nor the assessment of litigation risk provided by DHS (the Department of Homeland Security) to support its rescission decision is sufficient to sustain termination of the DACA program,” he wrote.
DACA was implemented in 2012 by former President Barack Obama, granting temporary status to work and live in the U.S. to people who were brought here illegally as children.
DACA protects nearly 694,000 undocumented youth brought to the U.S. as children, according to the Department of Homeland Security. As of March 31, Arizona was home to about 25,970 DACA recipients, nearly 4 percent of the U.S. total, according to DHS. It said 22,370 of those recipients were living in the Valley, while 2,210 were living in Tucson.
But last fall, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the administration was rescinding the program and no longer accepting new applications.
A spokesman for Sessions said in a statement late Tuesday that Bates’ ruling “doesn’t change the Department of Justice’s position on the facts.”
Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, welcomed the ruling, even though he said it’s not the permanent solution that’s needed; Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Prescott, said Bates’ “sympathies for illegal criminals overcame any legal analysis.”
Bates is the third federal judge since January to block the administration’s attempt to discontinue the program. The first ruling came in January in California and a month later, a federal judge in New York handed down a similar decision.
DACA recipient and advocate Abril Gallardo of Phoenix said these rulings have further motivated DREAMers to seek a permanent solution.
“All of the marches here and in D.C. that we have been involved in, and the lobbying that we have been doing is working, and it just gives me more fuel to continue to push for permanent protection for immigrant youth,” Gallardo said.
But former immigration Judge Andrew Arthur, a resident fellow of law and policy at the conservative-leaning Center for Immigration Studies, said these cases probably are headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The fact is that DACA was the result not even of an executive action, but rather of a memo that was issued by the secretary of Homeland Security without notice and without comment for the same reasons that DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans) was determined to be unlawful,” Arthur said. “For that reason, termination of DACA was appropriate and no additional explanation for that determination is necessary.”
But some said Tuesday’s ruling carries more weight than the previous two.
“It makes it more powerful because all the other court rulings merely allow the renewals of DACA recipients of the DACA applications,” said Salvador Macías, a Phoenix immigration attorney. “This opens the program wide up, back to what it originally was.”
Grijalva said the court’s decision “confirms what we knew all along.” He criticized the administration’s defense, calling it “erratic, impulsive, and based on the nativist voices in his administration that seek to close America’s doors to immigrants.”
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a briefing that Bates’ decision was broad and wrong, calling it “good news for smuggling organizations and criminal networks and horrible news for our national security.”
“What’s worse is that it creates incentive for more illegal immigrant youth to come here and causes them to expect similar judicial policies be applied to them,” Sanders said.
Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, called the ruling illegal and said federal judges who have blocked the Trump administration regarding DACA before should not have a seat at this table.
“None of those cases should have even been considered,” Krikorian said. “The judges had no business even hearing those cases. The administration has political branches of government who have the authority to do this.”
Republicans, including Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, were infuriated with the judge’s decision, which he said the White House should ignore.
“President Trump should direct his officials to disregard this ruling and continue to unwind the DACA program,” Biggs said. “Congress can take action against judges who abuse their constitutional mandates.”
Gosar, a staunch supporter of law-and-order immigration policy, agreed in a written statement, saying the ruling backed what he called an “unconstitutional action.”
“Judges like this create a judicial tyranny by imposing their political preferences instead of ruling on the law,” Gosar said.
Arthur said the judges could be impeached, but he does not have a position on this. The rulings “need to be appealed to the relevant Court of Appeals and then on to the Supreme Court for a final determination if the Courts of Appeals do not reverse,” he said.
Tuesday’s ruling was another attempt to remove the uncertainty looming over undocumented immigrants on the federal level. In February, the Senate voted on several immigration bills, but none won enough votes to stop a threatened filibuster. A bipartisan group of lawmakers proposed a similar path in the House in late March.
In its Tuesday night statement, the Justice Department said it would continue to “vigorously defend” the legality of its decision to end the DACA program and looked “forward to vindicating its position in further litigation.”
– Cronkite News reporter Lillian Donahue contributed to this report.
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Web links:
_ Bates’ ruling: https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2017cv1907-23
_ DACA rescission announcement: https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-sessions-delivers-remarks-daca
_ DACA recipient stats: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Reports%20and%20Studies/Immigration%20Forms%20Data/All%20Form%20Types/DACA/DACA_Population_Data_Mar_31_2018.pdf
_ Timeline embed code: <iframe src=”https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=19L-WhgIPyGwR81kiwHYyArB4QQDouE2w-9ruHr36QUk&font=Default&lang=en&initial_zoom=2&height=650″ width=”100%” height=”650″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=”allowfullscreen”></iframe>
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Nearly 26,000 DACA recipients live in Arizona, according to the Department of Homeland Security. (Photo by Andrea Jaramillo/Cronkite News)
Protesters marched in Washington on March 5, which was supposed to be the last day for DACA, but legal challenges have since kept the deferred deportation program alive. (Photo by Austen Bundy/Cronkite News)
As many as 800,000 immigrants were protected from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, but that number has fallen to about 690,000 now. (Photo by Austen Bundy/Cronkite News)
More than 60 people were arrested, including two protesters from Arizona, during March protests in Washington by advocates trying to save the DACA program that the White House wants to eliminate. (Photo by Austen Bundy/Cronkite News)