[The Daily Signal] On Dec. 20, in an unsigned, four-page opinion, the Supreme Court struck down a lower court order that severely burdened efforts by the Trump administration to end the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has shielded certain younger illegal aliens from deportation.This is good news, a helpful sign that the Supreme Court will not give unelected judges carte blanche to hamstring the federal government’s legitimate efforts to enforce immigration law restrictions, consistent with the current statutory law.
Continuation of DACA offends the rule of law. As Heritage Foundation scholar Hans von Spakovsky has explained, DACA should be eliminated as a matter of law: "Why? Because the president doesn’t have the authority to decide who should be in the United States legally when it comes to immigrants. That power resides entirely in Congress [because] . . . the Constitution says it."
In short, allowing a category of illegal aliens not to be deported requires an act of Congress, not an arbitrary presidential decision.
DACA was established in 2012 by a Department of Homeland Security memorandum. It applied to a large number of young illegal aliens who met certain conditions: they illegally entered the U.S. before the age of 16; were under the age of 31; had "continuously" resided in the U.S. since June 15, 2007; and were in school, graduated, or honorably discharged from the military.
DACA provided a period of deferred action (a promise that the alien would not be deported) as well as access to certain government benefits (including work authorizations, Medicare, Social Security, and the earned income tax credit). The period of deferred action was initially for two years, but that period was extended to three years by a second DHS memorandum on Nov. 14, 2014.