Trump blasts Supreme Court ruling blocking him from winding down DACA: 'Horrible & politically charged'
President Donald Trump, on Thursday, June 18, questioned whether the Supreme Court liked him after the top court in its ruling barred him from canceling the Obama-era DACA immigration program hours before. "Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn’t like me?" Trump tweeted, calling the decisions made by the Supreme Court "horrible and politically charged."
"These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives. We need more Justices or we will lose our 2nd. Amendment & everything else. Vote Trump 2020!" the president tweeted. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA) program provides legal protections for 650,000 young immigrants in the United States.
The Supreme Court, on Thursday, in a stunning rebuke to Trump amidst his reelection campaign, rejected his efforts to end the historic program, introduced by his predecessor, Barack Obama.
The justices, in their 5-4 ruling, rejected arguments from the Trump administration that the 8-year-old protection program was illegal and that courts do not have any role to play in reviewing the decision to end DACA. Chief Justice John Roberts, while writing for the court, stated that the administration did not pursue the end of the program properly. Roberts was joined by other liberal justices on Thursday, liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, Steven Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor. While the conservative wing of the court Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the ruling.
"We do not decide whether DACA or its rescission are sound policies," Roberts wrote. "We address only whether the agency complied with the procedural requirement that it provide a reasoned explanation for its action. Here the agency failed to consider the conspicuous issues of whether to retain forbearance and what if anything to do about the hardship to DACA recipients." He also wrote that the Department of Homeland Security can try again.
Meanwhile, Justice Thomas, in a dissent joined by Alito and Gorsuch, wrote that DACA was illegal from the moment it was formulated in 2012 under the Obama administration. "Today's decision must be recognized for what it is: an effort to avoid a politically controversial but legally correct decision," he wrote. While Kavanaugh, in a separate dissent, wrote that he was satisfied with the way the Trump administration attempted to end the program and deemed it appropriate.
The SC decision has come as a second loss for the Trump administration in a week as it comes days after the 6-3 ruling written by Justice Gorsuch that gay and transgender people are protected from being fired by federal civil rights legislation. In another setback to the president, the Supreme Court also decided not to pursue a case from his administration challenging California's 'sanctuary city' law.
The SC ruling on Thursday was welcomed by DACA recipients. Cesar Espinosa, who leads the Houston immigration advocacy group FIEL, and is a DACA recipient, wrote on Twitter: "We'll keep living our lives in the meantime. We're going to continue to work, continue to advocate."