Appeals court rules Trump end of DACA was unlawful
By Jacqueline Thomsen - 05/17/19 10:07 AM EDT A split federal appeals court on Friday ruled that President Trump’s decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was unlawful because “it was not adequately explained."
The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia found that the administration's termination of the program was "arbitrary and capricious," in line with a prior ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The bulk of the ruling rests on how the administration laid out its decision to rescind the DACA program.
Attorneys for the Trump administration argued that the decision to rescind DACA was an agency decision, and therefore did not have to made available for public comment and other procedures required under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
While the court agreed that the decision didn’t have to undergo a public comment period, they said administration officials still violated the federal law by not fully explaining its decision to rescind DACA.
The judges wrote in the majority opinion that then-Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke “rescinded a general enforcement policy in existence for over five years and affecting hundreds of thousands of enrollees based on the view that the policy was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.â€
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https://thehill.com/latino/444239-appeals-court-rules-trump-end-of-daca-was-unlawful