Temporary block on president's order may complicate lawmakers' action to aid ‘Dreamers’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump denounced the federal courts Wednesday as “broken and unfair” after a district judge in San Francisco issued a nationwide injunction keeping protections in place for so-called Dreamers.
“It just shows everyone how broken and unfair our Court System is when the opposing side in a case (such as DACA) always runs to the 9th Circuit and almost always wins before being reversed by higher courts,” Trump wrote in a tweet.
On Tuesday night, U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s decision to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, which has protected from deportation some 700,000 people who came to the country illegally as children.
Alsup granted a request by the state of California, the University of California and other plaintiffs to stop Trump from ending DACA on March 5.
The administration’s decision to end DACA, which was announced in September, was based on a “flawed” legal analysis, Alsup wrote in his decision. Dreamers would be irreparably harmed if their DACA protections, which allow them to live and work legally in the U.S., were stripped away before the courts had a chance to fully consider their claims, he ruled.
While the judge’s decision offered a temporary reprieve to Dreamers, it complicates negotiations on Capitol Hill, where the March deadline had been motivating lawmakers to devise a legislative solution.
Congress often works best when facing a deadline. The court’s injunction removes some of the urgency that had been developing as more than 120 DACA recipients a day fall out of protected status — a number that was expected to swell to 1,000 in March.
“The court ruling on DACA, while important, in no way lessens the urgency with which Congress must act to protect Dreamers,” said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum. “The clock is ticking for Congress to do their job and pass legislation supported by a vast majority of Americans.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer agreed, saying on the Senate floor: “The ruling last night in no way diminishes the urgency of solving the DACA issue. … We cannot wait. … Delay is a tactic employed by those who do not wish to see a deal.”
Trump’s meeting at the White House with 20 lawmakers on Tuesday outlined the contours of a possible deal.
The president acknowledged, for example, that his promised border wall — a nonstarter for Democrats — would not necessarily need to span 2,000 miles of the border but could involve fencing and other measures, including technology, to deter illegal crossings.
The White House suggested the court’s ruling would make a legislative deal harder to obtain.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement: “We find this decision to be outrageous, especially in light of the president’s successful bipartisan meeting with House and Senate members at the White House on the same day,” Sanders said.
Trump promised during his campaign to end the DACA program, and has repeatedly said the Obama-era program is unconstitutional and an abuse of executive power.