GSN March 2016 Digital Edition

Border Security/Immigration
What’s next in the Supreme Court Case
on expanded DACA and DAPA?
By Mellissa Crow
20, 2016 – This week, the
Supreme Court announced it would
Texas. The highest court will now
deferred action initiatives announced
in November 2014,
known as expanded DACA and
cise
of executive discretion. The
Supreme Court’s decision could
clear the way for the initiatives
to go forward as early as June of
2016. If that happens, expanded
vide
temporary relief from deportation
to as many as five million
people. It’s important to note that
the current, active DACA program
that began in 2012, which now has
more than half a million people enrolled,
is not being challenged in
this lawsuit.
Some court watchers were surprised
to see the court direct both
dent’s
actions violated the “Take
Care” Clause of the Constitution,
“take Care that the Laws be faithfully
executed.” Neither the Texas district
court nor the Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals addressed this legal claim;
instead, the lower courts based their
decisions on the government’s alleged
failure to comply with certain
technical requirements under
The Court’s request for additional
briefing on this issue suggests that it
wants to resolve all the issues in the
case, rather than leaving a loophole
that could be the basis for a future
decision by the district court, which
could further delay the implementa-
However, the Court may not end
up reaching the merits of this case
at all and may instead dismiss the
44
case for lack of standing, or legal capacity
to bring the case. This is the
best case scenario. Texas and the 25
other plaintiff states are arguing that
they have standing because additional
costs Texas might incur to issue
drivers’ licenses to beneficiaries
of the deferred action programs
give them enough of a stake in
the case to challenge federal immigration
policy. If the Court
would mean that states have an
unprecedented role in an area
that has always been an exclusively
federal domain.
Oral arguments in the case
will likely be scheduled for April
2016. The Court will issue a decision
before its current term ends in
June 2016. For the sake of the immigrant
families whose lives are riding
on this decision, let’s hope that the
him dating back to Eisenhower, has
the authority to take executive action
on immigration.
Photo Courtesy of Photo Phiend.