The president has few concrete campaign promise-fulfilling policies to show for the just over a year that he’s been in office, but it’s not for a lack of trying on his part. At what feels like every turn, he’s run into the wall of American law and order, keeping him from imposing the most draconian parts of his agenda.
In that light, the U.S. Supreme Court has already effectively moved against the Trump administration over its plans to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which is meant to protect undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. The court refused to hear an appeal from the Trump administration of a lower court ruling upholding the program.
Now, the Supreme Court has taken another step on behalf of the DACA program and those who benefit from it. As Reuters reports, the nation’s top judicial body refused to hear a challenge from the state of Arizona to a lower court ruling requiring it to continue providing driver’s licenses to “Dreamers,” the group of people protected by DACA. The lower court ruling thus still stands and the state of Arizona is still required to provide licenses to Dreamers.
The Supreme Court’s move comes after a ruling against Arizona handed down last year by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which concluded that the state could not implement its own immigration policy separate from that of the federal government. The state had sought to do so through denying driver’s licenses to DACA recipients, no matter whether or not they had a valid permit to work in the United States.
Ironically, the Trump administration is reported by Reuters to have “urged the justices not to take the case,” but not because its on the side of the DACA recipients. The going line from the Trump administration was that because it had moved to end DACA, “the state’s concerns have already been addressed.”
As mentioned, however, the Trump administration’s plans for DACA hit a roadblock in the form of San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who ruled on January 9 that while litigation over the future of DACA continues to unfold, the program must remain in place at least to the point of DACA renewal applications continuing to be processed.
Although Alsup isn’t on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Trump has in the past had problems with the legislative body underlying Arizona’s failed efforts before the Supreme Court.
Although the Supreme Court eventually allowed a version of the ban to go into effect last December, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Trump administration in a travel ban case not once but three times.
The president concurrently included the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in his volley of attacks on the nation’s justice system.
For example, after a ruling from the court against the president on his policies against “sanctuary cities,” he tweeted
‘First the Ninth Circuit rules against the ban & now it hits again on sanctuary cities-both ridiculous rulings. See you in the Supreme Court!’
You’d think that a president of the United States would be interested in upholding and protecting the nation’s systems of law and order, but such has proven to not be the case.
Featured Image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images
