24 | JULY 2 • 2020 

A 

June 20 Supreme Court decision 
invalidates the Trump adminis-
tration’
s attempt to rescind DACA 
(Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). 
For now, these immigrants — the “dream-
ers” — have retained the protections of 
DACA.
President Barack Obama’
s 2012 DACA 
program protects from deportation some 
undocumented immigrants who were 
brought to the United States as children and 
then raised and educated here. The program 
permits DACA recipients, about 700,000 
people, to obtain work permits. 
Five years later, on Sept. 5, 2017, Elaine 
Duke, acting secretary of Homeland 
Security in the Trump administration, 
issued a memorandum that “terminated 
the program.
” The U.S. District Court for 
the District of Columbia found that Duke 
provided insufficient explanation for ter-
minating the program. Duke’
s successor as 
secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen M. 

Nielsen, then provided additional reasoning 
for rescinding DACA.
On June 20, 2020, Chief Justice John 
Roberts, writing for the Court, ruled that the 
efforts to end DACA were still “arbitrary and 
capricious,
” and so DACA remains in force. 
At this point, dreamers can breathe a sigh 
of relief, and the Trump administration 
expresses frustration. 

THE LEGAL REASONING 
Tim Moran, senior lecturer at the Irvin 
D. Reid Honors College of Wayne State 
University, cautions that “when the Supreme 
Court issues an opinion, it’
s not because they 
‘
side with’
 any particular issue. They exam-
ine the law and decide whether the law has 
been followed correctly.
”
The majority of the court decided the case 
as a narrow question of the Administrative 
Procedures Act (APA). The executive can-
not simply overturn an administrative rule 
without providing a sufficient rationale. 
Justice Roberts, joined by the liberal justices, 
found that Duke’
s memorandum offered an 

“arbitrary and capricious” rationale, and that 
Nielsen’
s later additions could not remedy 
that original lack. 
Three conservative justices dissented 
in part on substantive grounds. Justice 
Clarence Thomas (supported by Justices 
Alito and Gorsuch) wrote that President 
Obama’
s orders creating DACA were 
themselves illegal, so the court should have 
accepted the memorandum ending DACA. 
Congress never granted legal status to these 
people, and the Department of Homeland 
Security could not do so. 
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented in 
part for a different reason: Ending DACA 
specifically targets Latino immigrants, and 
the court should have considered President 
Trump’
s often-expressed animus against 
Latinos.
The decision, however, rests on a proce-
dural question. Robert Sedler, professor of 
constitutional law at Wayne State University 
Law School, notes that Chief Justice Roberts 
here follows “the operative principle: Decide 
cases on the narrowest possible grounds.
”

The Supreme Court ruled that efforts to end the program
were “arbitrary and capricious.”

LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Jews in the D

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Jewish Legal Experts
Weigh In On DACA Decision

BY PAX AHIMSA GETHEN VIA WIKIPEDIA

Protestors in San Francisco
in 2017 defending DACA

