/Photo by Robin Bravender/ Arizona Mirror
By Allison Stevens | Arizona Mirror
The U.S. Supreme Court appears unlikely to salvage an Obama-era program that has allowed hundreds of thousands of young immigrants with no legal status known as “dreamers” to remain in the country without immediate fear of deportation.
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Lawyers defending the program – known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA – argued Tuesday that the Trump administration broke the law when it rescinded the program in 2017. Hundreds of protestors echoed the sentiment Tuesday, chanting, “Home is here!” and other pro-immigrant messages on the streets in front of the high court.
Former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano – who as head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama authored the memo that created DACA – called its benefits “substantial.” She is now president of the University of California, a party to the case.
“I think and would hope, if they actually did a real analysis of DACA, they would recognize that this is a valid exercise of the executive’s authority,” she told reporters after the hearing.
But the court’s conservatives seemed to disagree. During extended arguments in three consolidated cases, they seemed to endorse the legality of the administration’s decision to end the program and suggested that the question doesn’t even merit judicial scrutiny.
