Supreme Court blocks Trump from ending Obama-era DACA program

The U.S. Supreme Court blocked President Trump from ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which protected children brought to the United States illegally from deportation.

The court’s decision, 5-4, allows the Obama-era program to stay in place following the Trump administration’s attempt to disassemble it in September 2017.

At the request of then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Department of Homeland Security in 2017 announced it would begin winding down the program over the course of six months on the basis that DACA "was effectuated by the previous administration through executive action, without proper statutory authority and with no established end-date, after Congress' repeated rejection of proposed legislation that would have accomplished a similar result." DHS said it implored Congress to create a legislative solution to the executive branch-created program because only the legislative branch has the power to determine immigration admittance policies.

Under the program, people under the age of 18 who were brought to the U.S. illegally can apply for deportation protection and work permits for two years at a time. More than 650,000 people are DACA recipients.

Multiple states filed lawsuits against the Trump administration, saying it overstepped its bounds by rescinding a former president's executive action. Judges in two of those lawsuits, in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California and the Eastern District of New York, imposed preliminary injunctions that prevented the program from ending.

DACA was created following a failure by Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform in 2012 that would have provided a pathway to citizenship for “Dreamers,” or DACA recipients.