Courts

Supreme Court Will Hear DACA Appeal, Just In Time For The Election

And here I thought they were going to dodge this.

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(Photo credit: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)

Welp, I thought the Supreme Court would dodge the DACA issue until after the election. But apparently, some of the justices are feeling feisty.

The Supreme Court released some orders today, the last day of it’s term. In a surprise move, the Court agreed to hear the government’s appeal over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. They’ll hear the case next fall, which means that they’ll probably issue a decision next year. That means [checks calendar] yep, that means DACA, one way or the other, is likely to be decided just before the national party conventions in an election year.

Fun! [Weeps softly].

Like I said, I thought they would dodge. Donald Trump tried to end the DACA program, early in his tenure. The Democrats tried to shut down the government for, like, a day. Then Chuck Schumer cried or folded or folded while crying or did whatever it is that Chuck Schumer does when he loses.

But then the courts stepped in. Federal judges prevented Trump from ending the program. As I’ve written before, DACA exists by executive order, Trump CLEARLY has the power to end the program, as long as he gives a colorable reason for doing so. Judges have called the administration’s decision to end the program “virtually unexplained.” The government has had an appeal to those ruling sitting in front of the Supreme Court for a while now.

The easiest move for the Court would have been to ignore the case until after the election. Either Trump wins and they’ll have to get into it. Or Trump loses and the issue is moot.

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But, clearly, something changed. You only need four votes on the Supreme Court to grant cert, and we don’t ever know who the votes are. I feel confident that Chief Justice John Roberts was not one of the four. But beyond that, I really don’t know. Maybe the other four conservative justices are so red-assed about Roberts’s decision in the Census case yesterday, that they want to stick it to the chief. Maybe the progressives are hopeful that the chief now sees that the Trump administration lies and is willing to put a stop to it? Maybe this is the long awaited conservative attack against the nationwide injunction? Maybe four of them think that this is a good election issue, or one side or the other: Trump’s cruelty towards people who have lived a good life after they were brought here through no fault of their own tends to rile up Trump’s sick base, AND the resistance against him. Maybe four justices just got sick of being scared of the issue.

We can all come up with theories about why the Court is taking the case, but the fact is that they are taking the case. Hold onto your butts.

Supreme Court Will Hear ‘Dreamers’ Case [New York Times]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and a contributor at The Nation. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He will resist.

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