On November 12, 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral argument on the legality of the
Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) decision to terminate
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an Obama-era program
that provides work authorization and protection from deportation to
young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States
as children. The roughly 80-minute session focused on two primary
questions: whether the Court had the authority to review DHS's
decision to end DACA and, if so, whether the decision was
legal.
Termination of DACA and Judicial Review
The government, represented by U.S. Solicitor General Noel J.
Francisco, argued that the decision to end DACA fell squarely
within DHS's enforcement power or, more specifically, its power
to end a policy of nonenforcement. He said that by moving to end
DACA, an interim program, DHS had moved back toward Congressional
intent. He used the example of a prosecutor who decides
