DACA Goes To The Supreme Court

WAMU 88.5

Published November 12, 2019 at 10:06 AM CST

DACA recipient Anahi Figueroa Flores, who attends Georgetown University, speaks during a rally defending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in front of the U.S. Supreme Court .

Here is a list of the cases the Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday: Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, Trump v. NAACP and McAleenan v. Vidal.

Taken together, this schedule means that the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, this week.

The Obama administration implemented DACA to protect qualified migrants who were brought to the United States as children from deportation. It’s estimated that nearly 700,000 people are DACA recipients. The Trump administration said it planned to end the program in the fall of 2017 and has faced legal challenges in lower courts since.

Here’s some further context from The New York Times:

To be eligible for DACA status, applicants had to show that they had arrived in the United States before they turned 16 and were no older than 30, had lived in the United States for at least the previous five years, were a high school graduate or a veteran, and had committed no serious crimes. The status lasts for two years, allows recipients to work legally and is renewable, but it does not provide a path to citizenship.

What’s behind the Trump administration’s legal strategy to end DACA? How has this uncertainty affected the program’s hundreds of thousands of recipients?

Produced by Stacia Brown.

GUESTS

Michael Shear, White House correspondent, The New York Times; co-author of ‘Border Wars: Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration’ @shearm

Isabel Rubio, Executive director of the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama; @HispanicInterest

For more, visit https://the1a.org.