The April 24, 2018 headline of the New York Times article, U.S. Must Keep DACA and Accept New Applications, Federal Judge Rules summed up Judge John D. Bates’ outrageous decision to force the Trump administration to continue the DACA program created by the Obama administration.
The judge has given the Trump administration 90 days to substantiate President Trump 90 days to justify his claim that DACA is illegal.
Judge Bates’ ruling ignores the indisputable fact that DACA was created by Obama’s Executive Order and not by legislation. Judge Bates apparently believes that Exeuctive Orders must extend beyond the administration of the president who issued those Executive Orders, even when the new president disagrees with them. Bates’ ruling obstructs President Trump’s ability to implement his policies.
In order to understand the issue we must begin by considering the origins of DACA, an acronym for Deferred Action – Childhood Arrival.
First of all, the action that is being deferred by DACA is the required departure of illegal aliens from the United States.
Prior to the Obama administration’s claim of exercising “prosecutorial discretion” to justify the creation of DACA, immigration authorities did use the notion of “deferred action” for humanitarian purposes in a case-by-case basis, to provide nonimmigrant aliens, that is to say aliens who had been admitted into the United States for a temporary period of time, with permission to remain in the United States beyond their authorized periods of admission.
If, for example, a family member of an alien visitor in the United States had fallen seriously ill or became seriously injured, nonimmigrant family members would be allowed to remain in the United States for a finite additional period of time, to tend to their stricken family member.
As an INS special agent I was, on occasion, tasked with interviewing medical professionals to verify the medical condition of such individuals to make certain that fraud was not being perpetrated. Generally doctors were required to provide periodic documentation that reported on the medical status of the ill or injured family member.
Once the situation was resolved, hopefully with that family member making a sufficient recovery, the alien beneficiaries of that temporary deferred action were required to depart from the United States.