Appeals court blocks Trump from ending DACA
A federal appeals court in California has blocked the Trump administration from
immediately terminating an Obama-era program protecting from deportation
young immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San
Francisco, ruled unanimously in favor of a lower court’s preliminary injunction
against the administration’s attempt to phase out Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals. The program allows about 700,000 young immigrants to stay and work
in the United States. In January, U.S. District Judge William Alsup granted a
request to keep DACA operational while its future was being litigated.
The ruling is the latest legal setback for the Trump administration over DACA.
Last year President Trump announced his intention to end DACA to avoid a
lawsuit by Texas and other states. But the president’s action drew immediate
legal challenges.
In February, a federal judge in New York also blocked the administration from
ending DACA.
In April, a third federal judge, in Washington, D.C., also ruled against the
administration.
In this latest ruling, the first by an appellate panel, the judges rejected the
government’s arguments that the court has no jurisdiction in the matter and said
that DACA supporters are likely to succeed in their claim that the administration
was acting in an arbitrary and capricious manner.
Earlier this week and before the 9th Circuit had ruled, the Department of Justice
asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene by reviewing the three rulings
blocking the administration’s plan to terminate DACA.
The high court has not responded to that request. But virtually all-legal observers
anticipate that the Supreme Court will ultimately decide the program’s fate.
Ordinance approved to barring undocumented immigrants
Voters in the eastern Nebraska farm town of Scribner overwhelmingly approved
an ordinance that requires immigrants and others to obtain a city permit, and
attest to their citizenship status, before renting housing in the community.
The ordinance, patterned after one in effect in Fremont, won by more than a
2-to-1 ratio in voting Tuesday.
It also requires local businesses to use a federal database to check the
immigration status of job applicants.
Scribner officials are now waiting, and wondering whether the ordinance will be
challenged in court, as happened in Fremont, where the community had to raise
taxes to finance legal fees and other costs that have exceeded $600,000.
Scribner is the first Nebraska community to follow Fremont’s lead. Construction
of a massive Costco chicken-processing plant rising in Fremont helped spawn
concerns that Scribner, about 21 miles away, would see an influx of
undocumented foreign-born workers.
Medicaid expansion prevails in Nebraska
Voters in three traditionally Republican states supported ballot measures to
extend Medicaid benefits to more low-income adults.
The results highlight the divide between voters, even in conservative states, who
generally support providing health benefits to the poor, and conservative
politicians who have rejected the expansion, which is a central part of the
Affordable Care Act.
With the approval of the measures in Idaho, Utah and Nebraska, about 300,000
low-income people will gain access to health care coverage, according to
estimates from government agencies and advocacy groups in those states.
In Nebraska, about 90,000 people are now eligible for coverage.
Briefs
