Explaining the Supreme Court DACA case

On November 13, the Supreme Court will begin hearing the case about DACA, and will decide the program’s fate. The Court will not announce its decision until sometime between January and June of 2020.

There are three possible outcomes:

1)      The Supreme Court concludes that courts may not review the Trump administration’s decision to terminate DACA.

In other words, the Court has decided that the court system itself doesn’t have the authority to rule over the decision to end DACA, leaving the power in the executive branch. This would be a loss for DACA recipients, as the Trump administration would likely continue with its elimination of DACA.

However, it could also mean a future president would have the authority to reinstate DACA or something better without challenge from courts or lawsuits.

2)      The Supreme Court concludes that it may review the administration’s decision to terminate DACA and rules that the termination is unlawful.

This would be a win for DACA recipients, and the most positive outcome. DACA recipients would continue to be able to renew. It could also mean that DACA would return to its original Obama-era design, in which initial DACA applications would be accepted again and those with DACA could ask for Advance Parole (permission to travel abroad).

However, much depends on the specifics of the Court’s decision. DACA may be permanently narrowed to renewals for existing recipients, or the Trump administration may seek to terminate DACA based on entirely new legal reasoning, in which case new lawsuits may put the program in limbo again.

3)      The Supreme Court concludes that it may review the decision, and it decides that the Trump administration’s termination of DACA is lawful.

This would be a loss for DACA recipients, and the worst of the three possibilities. The details of the decision would affect the process and the timetable by which DACA is terminated. There are two possibilities:

a)      The Court decides that the President Trump had sufficient legal power to terminate DACA, and the administration determines exactly how the program is dismantled. They may stop processing renewals immediately and allow existing protections and work permits to expire, or they may even terminate existing protections and work permits before their expiration date.

b)      The Court decides that DACA itself was unlawful in the first place. In this case, initial applications would no longer be possible under any president and pending renewals would be terminated immediately. It is also possible current DACA protections and work permits would be terminated immediately, depending on the Court’s legal reasoning and the Trump administration’s reaction to the decision.

Source: https://www.nilc.org/issues/daca/daca-heads-to-scotus-scenarios/