A federal appeals court panel in Pasadena Tuesday heard arguments but did not immediately decide whether the Trump administration was justified in ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, an immigration policy that has shielded hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation.
The three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was the first appellate court to hear arguments about the decision last year to rescind DACA, which was created by the Department of Homeland Security through an executive order by former President Barack Obama in 2012.
The Trump administration announced in September of 2017 that it would end DACA in March of 2018 unless Congress passed legislation to save the program. But in January, a judge in San Francisco determined that the policy must remain in place while litigation is resolved and ordered the government to continue processing renewal applications from people who had previously been covered.
Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General Hashim Mooppan told the 9th Circuit panel that the administration had the authority to end DACA without court review and indicated the government believes the policy was an example of unconstitutional executive lawmaking.
"There's not one word in the DACA policy about what costs there are with potentially allowing 700,000 illegal aliens to work in this country, despite the fact that there's an act of Congress that says they're not supposed to work," Mooppan said. "There's not one word in DACA that considers whether it's legal despite the serious concerns about its legality."
Plaintiffs' attorney Jeffrey Davidson countered that the administration's position ignores DACA's humanistic concerns.
"The record reflects not one word of consideration for the 700,000 DACA recipients, not one word of consideration about the welfare of their families, including their 200,000 U.S. citizen children, not one word of consideration about the schools they attend, their employers or even the national economy," Davidson said.
News
Top news of the day
Attorney Mark Rosenbaum, representing individual DACA recipients, said the plaintiffs' "lives will be irreparably injured if, in fact, the rescission takes place."
Referring to DACA as a "welcome mat" for many young people who were brought to the United States illegally as children, he suggested the policy had good intentions.
"The government never said that at the end of two years, we can take that welcome mat that we put out for you and use it as the rug that we pull out from under you," he said.
Although the hearing Tuesday was placed on the court's expedited schedule, it was not immediately known when the panel would make its decision.
