The U.S. Supreme Court refused on Monday to hear an emergency appeal of a California judge’s ruling that blocked the Trump administration from ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
DACA stemmed from an Obama-era executive order barring the deportation of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children.
The West Coast federal judge had ruled that DACA recipients could continue to renew their status even though Trump had planned to wind down the program on March 5.
The president has been using that deadline as leverage to force Congress to green-light his other immigration priorities, including a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, the end to a decades-old ‘diversity’ visa lottery and limits to family-based ‘chain migration.’
Monday’s non-ruling by America’s highest court means that the regular Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals process will be allowed to play out – a saga that could take a year or more.
That appeals panel – and the judges below it in federal district courts – are considered the most liberal in the nation.
While the Justice Department could appeal an adverse ruling there back to the Supreme Court, DACA ‘Dreamers’ will be allowed to prolong their status in the meantime.
The administration had sought the high court’s intervention before a lower appeals court got the case at all –a short-circuiting that is highly unusual.
Expediting the case would have required a minimum of four justices to concur, something that did not happen. No justices published a dissent of the decision.
‘It is assumed that the court of appeals will proceed expeditiously to decide this case,’ the court said, offering no further explanation.