Third federal judge rules against Trump's order to end DACA
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John Bates rejected the Department of Homeland Security's legal reasoning for President Trump's decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
In his opinion, Bates, a Republican appointee to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., said the Homeland Security Department "failed adequately to explain its conclusion that the program was unlawful." He gave the department three months to come up with a better reason for ending the program, and said if they couldn't do this, DACA would be restored. Bates said he found one argument, that conservative state attorneys general planned on suing to end DACA, "so implausible that it fails even under the deferential arbitrary and capricious standard."
In September, Trump announced he would wind down DACA by March 5, but the order has been challenged in court several times, and Bates is the third judge to rule against the administration. DACA, created by former President Barack Obama, protects certain undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from deportation and makes them eligible for work permits.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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