Donald Trump took to Twitter this morning to blast his predecessor for signing an executive order that gave 700,000 illegal aliens who came to America as children protection from deportation for two years and the ability to get a work permit.
Trump called the executive order “totally illegal.”
….President Obama never had the legal right to sign DACA, and he indicated so at the time of signing. But In any event, how can he have the right to sign and I don’t have the right to “unsigned.” Totally illegal document which would actually give the President new powers.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2019
“DACA will be going before the Supreme Court. It is a document that even President Obama didn’t feel he had the legal right to sign – he signed it anyway!” Trump tweeted.
Trump, who campaigned on repealing DACA in 2016, announced a plan in 2017 to phase out the program, but was blocked by federal courts that ruled that the phase-out could not apply retroactively and that the program should be restarted. The White House fought back on those decisions, saying the president has broad authority over immigration enforcement policy.
DACA proponents have also argued that Trump’s planned termination of the program violates federal law requiring adequate notice-and-comment periods before certain federal rules are changed, as well as other constitutional equal protection and due process guarantees.
The case is now headed to the Supreme Court, where justices will begin hearing oral arguments in October. A ruling will likely come in 2020 and could galvanize activists on both sides of the political spectrum in the middle of an election year.
Making 700,000 illegal aliens legal by waving a magic pen was controversial, but is it illegal? So far, liberals aren’t arguing that the action Obama took was actually legal. They sought to overturn Trump’s order rescinding Obama’s decision on technicalities like not having a long enough comment period for the change in regulation, or that all the “I’s” weren’t dotted and “T’s” crossed when the president signed the new order.
The Supreme Court took the case, despite avenues of appeal in the lower courts left to both sides.
The Trump administration also took the unusual step of asking the Supreme Court to hear its appeals even before the federal courts of appeals could rule on them. Because the justices will have to decide the dispute eventually, the government argued, they should go ahead and do it quickly: Until the issues are settled, the government will have to keep in place a policy that it believes is illegal and “sanctions the ongoing violation of federal law by more than half a million people.”
Just a few days after the government petitioned for review in the Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued its decision in the government’s case. The court of appeals upheld the district court’s order requiring the Trump administration to keep the DACA program in place.
The justices considered the government’s appeals at two private conferences in January but then put them on hold. The cases returned for consideration at the justices’ conference on mid-June, and today the justices announced that they had granted review. The three cases will be argued together, likely in late fall.
Trump has blown hot and cold about DACA since he entered office. He has asked Congress on several occasion to pass legislation for a limited amnesty-type program, but he’s shot down every proposal made by either party.
The president thinks a Supreme Court decision will get Congress to move on the issue:
DACA will be going before the Supreme Court. It is a document that even President Obama didn’t feel he had the legal right to sign – he signed it anyway! Rest assured that if the SC does what all say it must, based on the law, a bipartisan deal will be made to the benefit of all!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2019
Court watchers are unsure that even a conservative majority will back Trump on this issue. Either way, it will be tough to get anything on immigration through the House and Senate in an election year.
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