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Bipartisan Amicus Brief Filed in Support of DACA

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Supreme Court to Rule on Trump’s Drive to Deport Dreamers

In light of the Supreme Court beginning its new term next week, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) filed a bipartisan amicus brief in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Forty-nine Senators and former Senators along with 123 Representatives and former Representatives signed on. The Supreme court will hear the case on November 12th and issue its decision by early summer (at the latest) of next year.

Background

In September 2017, President Trump ended DACA for some 700,000 Dreamers — young immigrants who are American in all but paperwork. Since then, Trump has torpedoed every serious bipartisan legislative proposal aimed at resolving the crisis he caused. It seems Stephen Miller has convinced the ‘Dear Leader’ that if they can get their conservative friends at the Supreme Court to end DACA early next year, the administration might have the upper hand in forcing Democrats to accept Trump’s radical nativist wishlist in exchange for some sort of Dreamer relief. 

The question now is whether the Roberts Court will do Trump’s bidding or protect young immigrants who have been living and working legally in the United States for years. DACA is supported by the vast majority of the American people as is the broader undocumented immigrant community. According to nearly two hundred members and former members of Congress, the Supreme Court must avoid being Trump’s accomplice in hostage-taking by doing the right thing and providing certainty that young immigrants can remain in the country they call home.

In response to the Court’s decision to act, Sen. Durbin, Rep. Lofgren and Elizabeth Wydra, President of Constitutional Accountability Center, commented

“When President Trump ended DACA more than two years ago, he set in motion a crisis jeopardizing the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people and their families. He then demanded his entire anti-immigrant wish-list as ransom to restore these young people’s protections. Now he’s taking this fight all the way to the Supreme Court,” Durbin said. “That’s why it is imperative for the Senate to pass the American Dream and Promise Act now. I will not rest until these young people and their families have the future in America that they deserve.”

“President Trump’s decision to terminate DACA created a moral emergency for our nation, put the fate of 800,000 young people on the line and broke with decades of congressional and executive precedent that recognized the legality of deferred action,” Lofgren said. “DREAMers are as American as any of us – except for the paperwork, and both Democratic and Republican administrations have lawfully and reasonably prevented the mass deportation of innocent young people. This Administration’s purported justification for terminating DACA is wrong as a matter of law and history, and the Supreme Court must join us on the right side of history.”

“President Trump’s claim that the law made him take away DACA’s protections is completely false,” said Elizabeth Wydra, President of Constitutional Accountability Center, which filed the brief on behalf of Members of Congress.  “President Trump knows DACA is incredibly popular—and that devastating the families of DACA recipients draws righteous outrage—so he wants the Supreme Court to do his dirty work and say he had no choice but to end DACA. The question now is whether Chief Justice Roberts will follow the law and stand up to President Trump.”