WASHINGTON, DC – The Supreme Court on Tuesday expedited its consideration of the Trump administration’s petition to review the legal challenge to President Donald Trump’s decision to end the DACA amnesty program for younger illegal aliens.
A court decision could come in June.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions made the legal determination shared by most legal authorities that under the Fifth Circuit federal appeals court’s decision striking down an expanded version of DACA (called DAPA), that a court would likewise invalidate the original DACA program.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accordingly announced in September 2017 that it would end the DACA program. Several lawsuits were filed challenging the legality of ending DACA, five of which were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Sessions has repeatedly asserted that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) would do everything within its power to enact President Trump’s immigration policy, and protect the president’s authority to make these decisions to the full limit allowed by the Constitution and federal law.
The attorney general made good on his promise. When the California federal trial court ruled the DACA shutdown illegal, DOF filed an appeal with the Ninth Circuit federal appeals court, but then also took the rare step of asking the Supreme Court to take the matter up immediately.
Sessions’ top Supreme Court lawyer, Solicitor General Noel Francisco, filed a motion at the Court asking the justices to expedite the timeline on the petition so that they could decide this case before the Court’s term concludes this June.
The Supreme Court granted that motion in part on Tuesday, ordering that the plaintiffs must file their briefs opposing review by February 2. This would allow the Court to vote on February 16 whether to take the case, and could still hear the case this term by issuing an accelerated schedule for filing briefs.
If the petition is granted, oral arguments should be heard the last week of April, with a decision by the last week of June.
The case is Trump v. Hawaii, No. 17-1003 in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ken Klukowski is senior legal editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @kenklukowski.
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