A federal appeals court Friday ruled President Donald Trump's administration unlawfully rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, The Hill reports.
Virginia's 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the decision to end DACA was "arbitrary and capricious," and then-Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke "rescinded a general enforcement policy in existence for over five years and affecting hundreds of thousands of enrollees based on the view that the policy was unlawful."
The court concluded the Trump administration violated the law because their reasoning "was not adequately explained."
The majority opinion adds "nor did the Department adequately account for the reliance interests that would be affected by its decision. Hundreds of thousands of people had structured their lives on the availability of deferred action during the over five years between the implementation of DACA and the decision to rescind. Although the government insists that Acting Secretary Duke considered these interests in connection with her decision to rescind DACA, her Memo makes no mention of them."
The ruling was not unanimous, however. Judge Julius Richardson, a Trump appointee, wrote in a separate opinion "the Executive's proper exercise of that discretion to rescind DACA is judicially unreviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act, regardless of one's view of the policy questions underlying DACA. To hold otherwise permits the Judicial Branch to invade the province of the Executive and impair the carefully constructed separation of powers laid out in our Constitution."
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