The United States’ 9th Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a ruling on Nov. 8 that upholds an injunction filed against the Trump administration in their attempts to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. The injunction to temporarily halt the rescission of DACA was first accepted by the U.S District Court for the Northern District of California back in January of this year.

President Trump announced the end of DACA in September of 2017, and the Department of Homeland Security stopped accepting and processing new applications. The UC System filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security over the removal of the program, claiming their action was “unconstitutional, unjust and unlawful.” 

With today’s ruling upholding the injunction, the Trump administration will need to continue to accept new and renewal applications while the legality of the program is being contested.

The panel’s ruling claimed that President Trump’s attempts to end the program lacked the proper authority, and were “arbitrary, capricious or otherwise not in accordance with law.”

In his concurring opinion with today’s ruling, Judge John Owens wrote, “A merits decision from the district court concluding that the executive rescinded DACA because of unconstitutional racial animus would be little more than an advisory opinion if by that time thousands of young people had lost their status due to the lack of an injunction preserving it.”

The UC Office of the President posted an official statement to their website in response to today’s ruling, saying the “UC is proud to have taken the lead as the first university to file a lawsuit challenging the government’s arbitrary attempt to end DACA.”

“Today’s decision is yet another strong message from our nation’s courts that the government’s attempt to rescind DACA was unlawful,” the statement reads. “The government’s only justification for rescinding DACA — that the program itself is legally flawed — is unfounded. Now that the appellate court has definitively rejected this argument, the university calls on the administration to stop its efforts to rescind the program.

An estimated 4,000 DACA students attend the UC. Around 800,000 people are currently enrolled in the program.

The ruling comes just a day after the announcement of the resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who first made the announcement of the administration’s move to end DACA in September of 2017.  

photo by Politico.com