Supreme Court Ruling Siding With Trump Admin On Daca Would “Destroy Lives,” Justice Sotomayor Says

November 14th 2019

By Gabe Ortiz

The Supreme Court's liberal justices made clear that they understood the consequences of ending the popular program that has allowed 700,000 young undocumented immigrants to legally work in the United States and live free from the fear of deportation, but one justice in particular laid out the consequences in stark and honest words.

“That outcome would ‘destroy lives,’ declared Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one the court’s liberals who repeatedly suggested the administration has not adequately justified its decision to end the seven-year-old Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program,” The Washington Post reported. Meanwhile, The Guardian said, “The liberal justice Stephen Breyer underscored the impact of DACA by listing how many entities had said they would be affected by its end: 66 healthcare organizations, three labor unions, 210 educational associations, six military organizations, three home builders, 108 municipalities and cities, 129 religious organization and 145 businesses.”

Lower courts have ruled that the administration’s “bare bones” decision to kill the program was “arbitrary and capricious,” but the fate of the program is now in the hands of the nine justices, who will issue their decision within the first half of 2020. While there are a number of ways the court could rule, a devastating possibility is that “the justices could potentially declare that any program like DACA is illegal, and therefore beyond the power of any future president,” Vox said.

There’s agreement that it appeared the court’s five conservative justices may side with the Trump administration, but some legal observers also said that they believed the chief justice could be the deciding vote. “I just got out of the DACA arguments at the Supreme Court,” tweeted writer Cristian Farias. “As expected, it was a very mixed bag. And it will come down to John Roberts.”

But unlike Sotomayor, Chief Justice Roberts didn’t appear to understand the vast consequences of ruling against DACA recipients. That’s not scary at all. Legal observer Mark Joseph Stern reported that Roberts stated that administration officials have claimed “they’re not going to deport” Dreamers, which isn’t true in the least. “The Trump administration has fought aggressively to deport several DACA recipients,” Stern writes, “even fabricating evidence to falsely accuse one Dreamer of gang affiliation.”

These deportations are being aided by complicit congressional Republicans such as Mitch McConnell, who refuses to allow permanent protections for DACA recipients to come up for a vote in the Senate, five months after they passed the House. Undocumented immigrant youth who rallied and raised their arms in solidarity outside the court on Tuesday made it clear, however, that they’ll keep fighting.

“The justices will have to choose to rule for Trump’s hate or rule for what is morally and legally right,” United We Dream leader Greisa Martinez Rosas said. “And as we approach the 2020 election, all political leaders will need to make their choice crystal clear because we, the people are watching and will mobilize voters to the polls.”

Posted with permission