On Friday, October 4, 2019, more than 30 national groups submitted an amicus brief in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and in opposition to the Trump Administration’s attempt to repeal the original executive order.

In June of this year, the Supreme Court announced that it would take up a legal challenge to the Obama Executive Order that created DACA protections. The Court term begins the first Monday in October, and the oral arguments for the DACA case are scheduled for November 12 with legal briefs required this month.

Initially, 800,000 people qualified under the Obama E.O. 689,000 were still covered when the Trump Administration announced in 2017, the President’s intention to end DACA in March of 2018. It began its efforts to freeze intake and end the programs in September 2017. Several Courts have ruled on the legality of the original DACA. Most recently, the Ninth Circuit Court in California upheld it in late 2018. At that point, the Court was responding to an action led by the California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. It found that former President Barack Obama’s creation of the program was a legitimate exercise of executive discretion. The three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, ruled unanimously in favor of a lower court’s preliminary injunction against the Administration’s attempt to end DACA.

The brief states: “The government’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy has endangered the mental and physical health of hundreds of thousands of children—mostly U.S. citizens—whose parents are DACA recipients. As organizations dedicated to supporting children and promoting their well-being, amici are deeply concerned about the immediate and long-term effects of ending the DACA policy on this population. Since the Trump Administration announced the rescission of DACA, children of DACA recipients live with the fear that their parents will be taken away, and that fear negatively impacts all aspects of their lives, including their health, education, and overall family stability.”

CWLA joined the lead filers of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Center for Law and Social Policy, on the Amicus Brief.

The amicus brief can be found here, with the appendix here.

It remains to be seen how quickly the Justices will rule after hearing the case in November. It could come as late as early-June 2020, at the end of this Supreme Court term and the middle of a presidential election year.