Supreme Court Races Congress On DACA Appeal

By Asish Samson

On Tuesday the Supreme Court of the United States has agreed to set up a fast track to hear the Trump Administration’s appeal against a federal court’s ruling to restart the DACA programme ( Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). Both sides are expected now to submit papers by February 16th at which date the Supreme Court confers.

If the case is taken up, the arguments would be heard in spring. This move would be a good sign for the Trump administration because it would swiftly create a resolution to the DACA issue and help in the forward movement of Trump’s agenda.

Last week, a stalemate over this particular issue and other federal budget negotiations between the Republicans and Democrats caused a three day government shutdown. Finally after increasing pressure from the American public and repeated attacks from Trump on twitter calling them out for their role in the shutdown, the Democrats backed down and agreed to a three week stop gap funding to end the shutdown on Tuesday.

Trump’s stance on DACA has been a affirmation of his hugely popular America First policy taken up during his presidential campaign. Trump announced in September last year that he would not renew Obama’s 2012 DACA programme which would end on March 5th 2018. But US Federal Judge William Aslup issued a ruling to restart the DACA programme against Trump’s decision. The US Justice Department responded by appealing to both the Supreme Court and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals against Aslup’s ruling. The 9th Circuit Court is a notorious court known for having a predominantly liberal bias. In the past it has repeatedly blocked Trump’s travel ban executive order that temporarily banned citizens from terrorist infested countries due to security issues. The 9th Circuit Court faced severe backlash from the public, especially conservatives for their biased agenda given more priority than the security of a nation.
Finally, the Supreme Court allowed Trump’s travel ban to take effect last December. Now again, another of Trump’s policies has reached the steps of the apex court which would hearten Trump’s administration. Last year Trump appointed Neil Gorsuch, a conservative leaning constitutionalist Judge to the Supreme Court to fill the post of the late Judge Anton Scalia. The Trump Administration would hope that this ruling too would vindicate their agenda.