Chief Justice John Roberts on Thursday threw up yet another obstacle to President Trump’s repeal of an Obama-era executive action.
It’s not that Trump imposed an
illegal or unconstitutional policy in 2017 when he repealed President Barack
Obama’s program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Rather,
Roberts and the liberal justices found a cheap technical loophole that places
the policy on hold.
In essence, because an initial memo
explaining Trump’s policy was inadequate, a three-year effort to rescind an
Obama executive memorandum has been nullified. Good luck, says the Roberts
Court — see you back here in another three years!
Justice Clarence Thomas nailed it in
his dissent when he characterized this ruling as a legal evasion. “Today’s
decision must be recognized for what it is: an effort to avoid a politically
controversial but legally correct decision.”
The issue is that, from a political
perspective, no one wants to deport DACA recipients — foreign nationals who
were brought to the United States illegally as children. Conservatives don’t
want them deported, and neither do liberals. Trump voters don’t want them deported.
Trump himself says he doesn’t want them deported. In fact, political danger
would befall anyone who proved unwilling to play ball in a legislative
compromise on DACA recipients’ fate.
But politics aside, Trump possesses
the legal power to undo Obama’s executive actions on immigration. Even if DACA
was legal in the first place — and Obama himself expressed doubts about
this — Trump was well within his power to revert immigration policy
to the status quo ante that had existed through Obama’s first term........To Read More.....
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