People protesting the cancelation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals rally on the steps to the Capitol Building on December 6th, 2017. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images) By deciding to do nothing, the Supreme Court may have saved the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program—at least for the the time being. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court announced which cases it would hear in its next session. Though the Trump administration had petitioned the nation's highest court to take up the constitutionality of the president's attempt to repeal DACA, the court decided to neither grant nor deny the administration's request, meaning that the issue will continue to proceed through lower courts. This means that DACA, the Obama-era program that protects over 700,000 young undocumented immigrants from deportation, will remain in place. Though the Trump administration attempted to end DACA in September of 2017, federal judges in California and New York issued injunctions preventing the repeal. With the Supreme Court's decision not to make a decision on Tuesday, those injunctions will remain in place. This means that current DACA recipients remain protected and may renew their existing applications, even though new applications to the program are no longer being accepted. Many pro-DACA advocates greeted the Supreme Court's non-decision with optimism. "The reason you're seeing a sigh of relief from [many advocates] is because this means that, for the time being, it's extremely unlikely that the court will be able to take up the question of DACA in this term. The timing won't allow it," says Araceli Martínez-Olguín, staff attorney at the National Immigration Law Center. Before the Supreme Court weighs in, the lower courts' injunctions will remain in place, meaning that DACA recipients are likely safe until the high court hears a case on the program. Even if a different lower court rules in President Donald Trump's favor against DACA, the matter won't reach a final conclusion until the Supreme Court weighs in. Martínez-Olguín says that she and other immigration legal experts are "trying to read the tea leaves" and predict what might come next for DACA and the Supreme Court. The court's decision to neither grant nor deny certiorari (a review of the lower court decision) did not elucidate the justices' reasoning. Though she says one can't be sure, Martínez-Olguín thinks the justices are likely waiting for the lower courts to finish their proceedings and issue decisions on DACA. There are currently five different court cases considering aspects of DACA and the repeal winding their way through lower courts. Four of those cases deal with the legality of the repeal, while one case in Texas questions the legality of the program itself. "The Trump administration's petition for cert was an out of place legal request," Martínez-Olguín says. She explains that it's highly unusual for an administration to ask the Supreme Court to adopt a case before lower courts have even issued their opinions. What does this mean for DACA's immediate future? Martínez-Olguín says that the next key date will be February 17th, when the Supreme Court justices will again look at which cases they might take up. If four justices decide to grant cert to one of the DACA cases, it will enter the court's schedule. However, Martínez-Olguín says it's likely that the court won't find room to hear arguments for the case until its new term, which begins in October. "Arguments would likely not happen until the fall," she says. "That means that an actual decision would likely not come until spring or summer of 2020." Many advocacy groups, including the NILC and United We Dream, encouraged DACA recipients whose DACA status expires before 2020 to renew as soon as possible. "Renew, renew, renew," Martínez-Olguín says. She notes that advocacy organizations like United We Dream might be able to provide funding assistance to recipients who can't afford the $495 early renewal fee. As DACA recipients and their advocates experience cautious optimism now that the program, while not safe, has at least been thrown a lifeline, some think the Supreme Court's move might affect the current political battle over the partial government shutdown. In an attempt to negotiate funding for his border wall, Trump on Saturday unveiled a deal that would offer temporary protection for DACA recipients in exchange for border wall funding. Trump's proposed deal—seemingly dead on arrival as Democratic leaders immediately rejected it—may now carry even less weight, since the injunctions protecting DACA recipients could last through the year. "His bargaining power is definitely weakened," Martínez-Olguín says.<doc-sep>SOMETIMES THE biggest news out of the Supreme Court is that the justices have done nothing. That was the case on the morning of January 22nd, when the court’s 13-page list of orders in pending cases included not a word on litigation concerning Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the Obama-era immigration programme that Donald Trump has been trying—unsuccessfully—to end. As a result of the justices’ inaction, some 700,000 DACA recipients who were brought by their parents illegally to America when they were children will, for the time being, keep their work authorisations and remain protected from deportation. Donald Trump’s plan to ditch DACA was announced by his first attorney-general, Jeff Sessions, in September 2017. In January, February and April of last year, federal district courts in San Francisco, New York and the District of Columbia each blocked Mr Trump’s plans, telling him he had not followed proper procedures in rescinding Mr Obama’s executive order. Agencies may not change regulations in “arbitrary and capricious” ways, the Administrative Procedures Act requires, and the three judges all ruled Mr Trump had not provided adequate justification for the wind-down. In August, a fourth judge in Texas unexpectedly rejected a direct challenge to DACA’s legality from several Republican states. DACA may have legal difficulties, Judge Andrew Hanen argued, but it would be wrong to end the policy at a stroke. "[T]he egg has been scrambled," Judge Hanen wrote. "To try to put it back in the shell...perhaps at great risk to many, does not make sense nor serve the best interests of this country”. Nevertheless, Mr Trump persisted, seeking permission from three circuit courts of appeal and from the Supreme Court itself to begin rolling back DACA protections. Having been rebuffed by the justices a year ago in its request for “certiorari before judgment”—a decision on DACA that would have leapfrogged the intermediate courts—the administration filed another such appeal in November 2018. The petition noted that if the circuit courts were permitted to take their usual time to issue rulings, America would be stuck with a bogus policy for far too long. (One of the tribunals, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, then released its ruling, unfavourable to Mr Trump, on November 8th.) It would be “at least a year”, the administration pleaded, before possible relief from the circuits came, and in the meantime, DACA’s existence would represent an “ongoing violation of federal law by more than half a million people”. Following the submission of briefs from both sides, the justices met privately on a pair of occasions in recent weeks to discuss Mr Trump’s extraordinary request for relief before the lower courts rendered their judgments. Twice—after conferences on January 11th and January 18th—the justices took no action, neither accepting the case for argument nor rejecting the plea. That means the appeal is still pending. But since mid-January is traditionally the cut-off point for the court to grant cases that it considers and decides before the close of its term at the end of June, it seems DACA recipients will be spared Mr Trump’s hoped-for rollback of the programme until at least the autumn and likely through the end of 2019, if not till June 2020. The silence on DACA from 1 First Street NE is good news for Dreamers (recipients of the protections) and bad news for Mr Trump. In addition to having his plans thwarted for still more months, the justices’ inaction removes a source of leverage Mr Trump hoped to use in negotiation with Democrats over how to end the partial government shutdown, now in its 33rd day. On January 2nd, Mr Trump noted that “if we win that [DACA] case” at the Supreme Court, “we’ll be easily able to make a deal on DACA and the wall as a combination”. Mr Trump has tried to broker such a deal in recent days: $5.7bn for his wall on the southern border in exchange for a three-year extension on protected status for Dreamers. But with DACA safe for now, thanks to the Supreme Court, that offer—salted with more worrisome measures apparently added by immigration hard-liners in Mr Trump’s circle—has lost its appeal.<doc-sep>The Supreme Court on Tuesday took no action on whether it will hear disputes over the Trump administration's decision to wind down the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. No action from the court may mean protections for some 700,000 young people brought to the country illegally as children may remain in place for several more months. Many viewed this as the last opportunity for the court to review the case this term given the court’s already full calendar. The justices typically don’t agree to hear cases over the summer. ADVERTISEMENT Sam Erman, an associate professor at Southern Cal Gould School of Law, said the longer the justices leave an issue hanging out there, the more likely they are to want to wait until the next term to weigh in. And he said there are good reasons to want to wait on DACA. “If DACA is the subject of political negotiations, it might go away if there's a deal,” he said. “That would allow them to avoid settling the separation of powers issue. The court has a strong preference for the branches working it out.” President Trump Donald TrumpTrump lashes out after grand jury seated for New York criminal probe Schumer tees up vote on Jan. 6 commission bill Senators struggle to save Jan. 6 commission MORE over the weekend tried to use DACA as a bargaining chip in negotiations to end the partial government shutdown now in its 32nd day. On Saturday, the president offered a three-year extension for the program in exchange for $5.7 billion to construct a wall along the southern border, but Democrats have refused the deal. Multiple district courts found the administration’s 2017 decision to wind down the program to be either unlawful or likely unlawful and ordered for it be maintained. Solicitor General Noel Francisco has asked the Supreme Court to make the final decision on whether the recision is lawful or not. Francisco's request, however, was unusual because it asked the justices to take up the issue before the regional appeals courts have weighed in. He said the lower court decisions were wrong to force the administration to retain a discretionary nonenforcement policy that the Department of Homeland Security and the attorney general concluded was unlawful. He also argued that the very existence of this litigation and resulting uncertainty would continue to impede efforts to enact legislation addressing the legitimate policy concerns underlying the DACA policy. The University of California and the states of California, Maine, Maryland and Minnesota were among some of the entities who brought lawsuits challenging the administration’s decision to end DACA. The justices, however, could still decide to hear the case and add a special sitting for arguments. "They are supreme," Erman said. "They can always grab things if they want to." For now though, advocates say these undocumented immigrant youth, known as dreamers, can breathe a sigh of relief. Sanaa Abrar, advocacy director of United We Dream, said in mid-February, the court could announce whether they will take up the case in their next session this fall. In the meantime, she asked Trump to reopen the government and for Congress to pass permanent protections for immigrants without giving more money to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. “DACA’s protections have provided hundreds of thousands of immigrant youth with peace of mind and safety as well as work and educational opportunities. Shamefully, Trump has done everything he can to rip that apart and is playing a cruel game with the lives of immigrant youth. Updated at 12:04 p.m.<doc-sep>WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court took no action Tuesday on the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, a move that requires the government to keep the program going for at least 10 more months. The Trump administration urged the justices to hear appeals of lower court rulings that prevent the government from shutting DACA down. Now, any cases accepted in subsequent weeks won't be heard until the next term, which begins Oct. 1, and it would take a few months more for the court to issue a decision. DACA allows children of immigrants who came into the country illegally to remain here if they were under 16 when they arrived, provided it was by 2007. The Obama-era initiative has allowed 700,000 young people, commonly referred to as "Dreamers," to avoid deportation. The nickname comes from the DREAM Act, which would have offered many of the same protections as DACA but was never approved by Congress. The Trump administration moved to end the program in late 2017, but federal courts in San Francisco, New York, and Washington blocked that attempt. After a brief hiatus, the government began accepting renewal applications from DACA participants, which must be filed every two years. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that, far from being illegal, deferred action has been a feature of the immigration system for decades. "In a world where the government can remove only a small percentage of the undocumented noncitizens present in this country in any year, deferred action programs like DACA enable DHS to devote much-needed resources to enforcement priorities such as threats to national security, rather than blameless and economically productive young people with clean criminal records," the ruling said. The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to overturn those lower court judgments. The Department of Homeland Security and the attorney general concluded that it is unlawful, said Solicitor General Noel Francisco, finding that it "sanctions the ongoing violation of federal law by more than half a million people." He said that by agreeing to hear the appeals, the court could "provide much-needed clarity to the government and DACA recipients alike." Francisco also said that as long as the question is pending in the courts, Congress has less incentive to come up with a permanent solution. But supporters of the DACA program said nothing in the lower court rulings would prevent the government from undertaking deportation proceedings against any individual DACA recipient if the need arose. They also noted that President Donald Trump himself has taken conflicting positions on the program, saying at one point, "I love the 'Dreamers.'"<doc-sep>
(CNN) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday once again did not act on the Trump administration’s effort to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, leaving protections for nearly 700,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children in place for at least the next several months. The court’s inaction is a loss for the Trump administration that had asked for the justices to take up the issue this fall and comes as the President has tried to exchange protections in exchange for a border wall. “The justices’ refusal to act on the government’s pending appeals in the DACA litigation means, among other things, that President Trump can’t use this litigation, at least for now, for leverage in negotiations over the government shutdown,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law. “Even if the court agrees to take up these cases, the earliest it would hear them now is this fall, with no decision until early 2020,” Vladeck added. “That kicks the debate over DACA back to the political branches.” RELATED: House, Senate keep shutdown blame game going with more show votes On Saturday, Trump proposed a deal that would extend temporary protections to DACA recipients and immigrants with temporary protected status in exchange for his border wall. The offer was a reversal from his previous position of leaving the program in the hands of the Supreme Court. The issue facing the Supreme Court is not the legality of the program, but the way the Trump administration wanted to terminate it. In September 2017, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the phase-out of DACA, arguing that it was created “without proper statutory authority.” Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke then formally rescinded the program. Under the administration’s original plan, protections would have begun to expire in March 2018. But a slew of legal challenges and subsequent court rulings have kept the program alive. Plaintiffs, including the University of California, a handful of states and DACA recipients, argued that the phase-out violated the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law that governs how agencies can establish regulations. Three federal judges have ruled that the justification and the manner by which the administration terminated DACA was flawed. The administration had tried to circumvent the appeals courts and involve the Supreme Court early on to no avail. But late last year, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals eventually upheld a ruling blocking the phase out, allowing the Supreme Court appeal. “To be clear: we do not hold that DACA could not be rescinded as an exercise of Executive Branch discretion,” wrote Appeals Court Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw. “We hold only that here, where the Executive did not make a discretionary choice to end DACA – but rather acted based on an erroneous view of what the law required – the rescission was arbitrary and capricious under settled law.” Appeals are still pending in the 2nd and 4th Circuits. The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals is set to hear oral arguments on the case Friday. It’s unlikely that DACA recipients will receive reprieve through legislation anytime soon. Democrats immediately dismissed Trump’s latest proposal to provide temporary protections, pushing instead for a more permanent solution. The back and forth over DACA has left the program’s beneficiaries with no clear path forward. The program, announced in 2012, provides recipients with protection for two years, which can be renewed, and allows them to work legally in the country. To qualify, recipients must’ve entered the country before the age of 16 and lived in the US since 2007. Those already enrolled in the program have been able to apply for renewal, as a result of an injunction issued last January by Judge William Alsup, though the administration is not required to take new applications. This story is breaking and will be updated.