In a closely watched ruling, this week the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, which protects from deportation undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. President Trump took steps to cancel the program in 2017, leading to a years-long legal battle that ended up in the highest court. As for what the decision means for DACA recipients nationwide and in Arizona, we got analysis from Jose Vazquez, an immigration attorney in Tucson.
“I think as immigration attorneys, we were expecting the worst, which was that the DACA program was going to be completely rescinded,” Vazquez said.
Vazquez said the court ruled against the Trump administration because it failed to use the proper channels to dismantle DACA, but that the president still has the authority to end the program if he chooses to do so.
“The majority opinion called a decision to terminate the program arbitrary and capricious. Now, they didn’t say that the program could not be rescinded. Neither party argued that,” Vazquez said. “It’s just the way that this program was on the chopping block. The proper legal channels were not followed to properly rescind it.”
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