Federal appeals panel questions Trump administration's rationale on DACA

On Friday, Feb. 22 at a hearing on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, a three-judge federal appeals panel questioned the Trump administration’s justifications for ending the program.

Judge Harry Edwards and Judge Thomas Griffith criticized the government’s argument for presenting explanations that were unrelated to legality for the decision to rescind DACA, despite repeated requests for legal rationales.

The hearing was held in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The University, Maria De La Cruz Perales Sanchez ’18, and Microsoft are plaintiffs in the case.

In an email to the Daily Princetonian, University Spokesperson Ben Chang affirms the University’s continued agreement with U.S. District Judge John Bates’s ruling on April 24, 2018.

“The government was wrong to rescind DACA on the basis it was unlawful,” Chang wrote. “Princeton, and higher education in general, benefit from the talent and aspirations of DREAMers, and we continue to urge Congress to enact a permanent solution.”

Bates concluded in the April ruling that the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) rescission of DACA “was arbitrary and capricious because the Department failed adequately to explain its conclusion that the program was unlawful.”

DACA protects undocumented immigrants who came to the country illegally as children from deportation. There are currently 800,000 recipients, known as “DREAMers”, within the program.