Federal appeals court rules against Trump's effort to end DACA

A federal appeals court has upheld an order preventing the Trump administration from ending DACA.

In a decision Thursday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which was put into place by former President Barack Obama and allows some undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children to be shielded from deportation for two years and receive work permits, can continue, BuzzFeed News reports.

The Trump administration announced in 2017 that it would be ending DACA, telling recipients to prepare for "departure from the United States," reports CNN. This decision was immediately challenged in court, with a federal judge in January issuing a nationwide injunction ordering the administration to continue the program. This nationwide injunction has now been upheld.

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The 9th Circuit concluded that the Department of Homeland Security was wrong to assert that DACA is illegal, writing that the program is "a permissible exercise of executive discretion," and therefore those who have sought to challenge the administration's move to rescind it "are likely to succeed." The decision notes, however, that this is not to say that Trump can not end DACA at all, but that in this case, the administration "acted based on an erroneous view of what the law required."

The Trump administration has already asked the Supreme Court to hear a case on this issue.