The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected President Donald Trump's effort to end legal protections for 650,000 young immigrants, a stunning rebuke to the president in the midst of his reelection campaign. The ruling means that, for now, those immigrants retain their protection from deportation and their authorization to work in the United States.
The ruling drew reaction from around California, including from the state's attorney general, lawmakers, activists and others.
Editor's Note: More reaction from around California will be added below when it becomes available.
“Today, justice prevailed for every Dreamer who has worked hard to help build our country — our neighbors, teachers, doctors, and first responders. Today, America told the Dreamers that this is their home," California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. “The highest court in our land saw through the Trump Administration’s illegal, baseless excuses. The Court agreed: If you work hard and play by the rules, you deserve a chance to get ahead. "
The 5-4 outcome, in which Chief Justice John Roberts and the four liberal justices were in the majority, seems certain to elevate the issue in Trump's campaign. The justices rejected administration arguments that the 8-year-old Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program is illegal and that courts have no role to play in reviewing the decision to end DACA.
Trump's first reaction came on Twitter, where he retweeted a comment incorporating a line from Justice Clarence Thomas' dissenting opinion in which Thomas called the ruling "an effort to avoid a politically controversial but legally correct decision."
Roberts wrote for the court that the administration did not pursue the end of the program properly.
"We do not decide whether DACA or its rescission are sound policies," Roberts wrote. "We address only whether the agency complied with the procedural requirement that it provide a reasoned explanation for its action. Here the agency failed to consider the conspicuous issues of whether to retain forbearance and what if anything to do about the hardship to DACA recipients."
The Department of Homeland Security can try again, he wrote. But any new order to end the program, and the legal challenge it would provoke, would take months, if not longer, immigration experts said.
The court's four conservative justices dissented. Justice Thomas, in a dissent joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, wrote that DACA was illegal from the moment it was created under the Obama administration in 2012.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a separate dissent that he was satisfied that the administration acted appropriately in trying to end the program.
DACA covers people who have been in the United States since they were children and are in the country illegally. In some cases, they have no memory of any home other than the U.S. The program grew out of an impasse over a comprehensive immigration bill between Congress and the Obama administration in 2012. President Barack Obama decided to formally protect people from deportation while also allowing them to work legally in the U.S.
