The Supreme Court's rejection of President Donald Trump's attempt to undo former President Barack Obama's executive order on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) opens up an entirely new form of presidential power, one difficult to unwind.
And law professor and former Department of Justice official John Yoo is advising Trump to capitalize, because "it will take years" for a successor to undo it.
"I told them you can do this in immigration," Yoo told Newsmax TV's "Spicer & Co" on Thursday, when asked about calls he has taken from White House officials of late. "You can switch from family based immigration to skills-based immigration, like you've wanted to for four years.
"I said why does it have to stop immigration? Why not fix problems in inner cities and say 'we're gonna do more deregulation, we're going to do more tax cutting in the cities to help these places that are hit by poverty and so on.
"So it doesn't even have to be immigration, but at the very least Trump could completely change the focus of our immigration policies in a very positive direction, because Congress won't do its job and refuses to cooperate."
Yoo is author of "Defender in Chief: Donald Trump's Fight for Presidential Power," which was released Tuesday, and host Sean Spicer and Yoo noted the copies have been passed around the White House, including appearing on Trump's desk in the Oval Office.
Since the Supreme Court rejected Trump's executive order on DACA, Trump can turn the tables back around on future presidents the same way Obama had.
"What's good for the goose is good for the gander," Yoo told Spicer. "President Trump can also create new kinds of immigration programs now just by saying I won't remove other kinds of people from the country."
Important: See Newsmax TV now carried in 70 million cable homes, on DirecTV Ch. 349, Dish Network Ch. 216, Xfinity Ch. 1115, Spectrum, U-verse Ch. 1220, FiOS Ch. 615, Optimum Ch. 102, Cox cable, Suddenlink Ch. 102, Mediacom Ch. 277, or Find More Cable Systems – Click Here.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.