Demonstrators at a march supporting Dreamers in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Doug Strickland/Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP
A federal judge in Washington, DC, just dealt a major blow to the Trump administration’s plans to end protections for undocumented immigrants who entered the United States as children.
In an order issued Tuesday evening, US District Judge John D. Bates called the decision to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, “arbitrary and capricious,” and ordered the Trump administration to continue the program and accept new applications. The judge gave the administration 90 days to defend its decision before the ruling would take effect.
Bates wrote that the administration failed to adequately explain why it believes the program was unlawful, and that its “meager legal reasoning” and the Department of Homeland Security’s assessment of litigation risk was not a sufficient reason to sustain the program’s termination.
He is the third judge to rule against the Trump administration’s decision to rescind DACA, according to the Washington Post.
Read the full decision below.
