Supreme Court Refuses to Weigh into DACA Fight - For Now

Article author: 
Ken Klukowski
Article publisher: 
Breitbart
Article date: 
26 February 2018
Article category: 
National News
Medium
Article Body: 

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) petition to decide whether the Trump administration’s decision to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is permitted by federal law. But the Court also made clear that it was only denying DOJ’s extremely rare request to skip the federal appeals court that currently has the case, making it almost certain that the nation’s highest court will take up the case later this year.

President Barack Obama created DACA amnesty in 2012, then later expanded it into Deferred Action for the Parents of Americans (DAPA) in 2015. A federal appeals court struck down DAPA as illegal in 2015, and the Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 on the issue when Justice Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly in 2016.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ made the legal judgment that the Fifth Circuit federal appeals court’s decision striking down DAPA also made DACA illegal. Once President Trump took office, his U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) followed Sessions’ advice, and ended DACA. DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen declared that her department did so because DACA is unconstitutional....

On Monday, the Supreme Court denied DOJ’s petition to grant review before the Ninth Circuit could issue a judgment in the case. Republicans should not be dismayed. Such petitions—called a petition for certiorari before judgment, authorized by Supreme Court Rule 11—are almost never granted. Initial research suggests the last time the justices did so is 2003—15 years ago.
 
When the Court issued its denial on Monday, it included the rare statement, “It is assumed that the Court of Appeals will proceed expeditiously to decide this case.”...