Obama used his infamous pen and phone to bypass that ‘triviality’ of the Separation of Powers insisting that Legislators, and not the Executive, make laws. Here’s what happened when Trump tried to reverse it.
The short answer is, in a 5-4 split decision, Justice Roberts and the (other) Progressive judges blocked the Executive Order.
hey did NOT block it on the merits of whether DACA was good or bad, mind you. They were explicitly silent about that. Instead, the majority ruled to block in on a technicality centering on HOW the President was unspooling the order.
Schumer ‘cried literal tears of joy,’. This is to be expected since we still remember Palmieri’s January 2018 leaked memo about ‘DREAMers’ being central to future Democrat electoral success.
Leave it to a Democrat to measure every issue in terms of their own political power dynamics. That would go a long way to helping explain why so many elected ‘principled’ Democrats have been on record defending BOTH sides of the illegal immigration issue.
What did SCOTUS rule, exactly?
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the 5-4 majority opinion, arguing that the Trump administration’s decision to end the program was “arbitrary and capricious”.
The case hinged primarily on whether the Trump administration followed proper procedure in its decision to end the program – not whether it could legally end it. As the majority opinion states, “all parties agree that it may”. —The Guardian
Authoring the Majority decision, Roberts went on:
In Thursday’s opinion, Roberts wrote that when the administration rescinded DACA it “failed to consider the conspicuous issues of whether to retain forbearance” — referring to the non-enforcement of immigration laws to remove those with DACA protection — as well as the impact the decision would have on DACA recipients who have relied on the program.
“That dual failure raises doubts about whether the agency appreciated the scope of its discretion or exercised that discretion in a reasonable manner,” Roberts wrote, noting that the administration could have scrapped the benefits provided by DACA while keeping the non-enforcement policy, but instead eliminated all of it without even giving a reason for ceasing non-enforcement.
“The appropriate recourse is therefore to remand to DHS so that it may consider the problem anew.”
What question did they scrupulously REFUSE to answer?
The court on Thursday, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, more accurately shrugged its shoulders.
In the majority opinion, Roberts actually wrote the phrase, “Even if it is illegal for DHS to extend work authorization and other benefits to DACA recipients …”
Even if it is illegal?! That’s what we’ve been waiting for you to tell us!
But instead, the Supreme Court simply determined that while the Trump administration, or any future administration, may be entitled to end the program, it can’t do it the way Trump did it.
“We address only whether the agency complied with the procedural requirement that it provide a reasoned explanation for its action,” the court said. “Here, [DHS] failed to consider the conspicuous issues of whether to retain forbearance and what if anything to do about the hardship to DACA recipients. … The appropriate recourse is therefore to remand to DHS so that it may consider the problem anew.” [emphasis added] —WashingtonExaminer
So to recap… Obama could use his pen and a phone to bypass the legal process, and the courts did nothing to stop him. But Trump tries to return the Executive Branch to operating more strictly within the lawful bounds of the Constitution, and the SCOTUS blocks him from doing so for fear of … negative consequences?
Wouldn’t that push the onus onto the Legislative Branch to actually get off their keisters and address deficiencies in the law?
Predictably, Trump was pissed and took to Twitter to say so.
These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives. We need more Justices or we will lose our 2nd. Amendment & everything else. Vote Trump 2020!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2020
Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn’t like me?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2020
But the Dissenting opinion was no less critical of the decision.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas ripped his colleagues for blocking President Donald Trump’s request to end the DACA program.
…“Today’s decision must be recognized for what it is: an effort to avoid a politically controversial but legally correct decision,” Thomas wrote in his dissent.
…Thomas blasted his colleagues for giving the “green light for future political battles to be fought in this Court rather than where they rightfully belong — the political branches.”
“The majority does not even attempt to explain why a court has the authority to scrutinize an agency’s policy reasons for rescinding an unlawful program under the arbitrary and capricious microscope,” Thomas said. “The decision to countermand an unlawful agency action is clearly reasonable. So long as the agency’s determination of illegality is sound, our review should be at an end.”
He said the majority’s opinion supports the idea that a president is “not only permitted, but required, to continue administering unlawful programs that it inherited from a previous administration.” —NewsMax
Justice Roberts and the Progressive wing of SCOTUS insisted that better reasons were necessary for rescinding DACA. Really?
Better reasons than this one, asked in Roberts’ own words?
In the summer of 2016, a 4-4 deadlock in the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that declared that program — known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, or DAPA — unlawful, blocking it from going forward.
“You need more than that? You’ve got a court of appeals decision affirmed by an equally divided Supreme Court. Can’t he just say that’s the basis on which I’m making this decision?” Roberts asked Mongan. —CBSNews
While impossible to prove, a few critics have openly speculated that Roberts has been influenced by a personal dislike for the sitting President.
With Roberts himself having entered a question like that one into the record and STILL blocking the Executive Order, decisions like this one only serve to further that speculation.
