Two major things happened today regarding DACA: 1) Trump & Congress members met to talk about a deal on DACA; and 2) a Federal judge is blocking Trump Administration from rescinding DACA & to allow former & current DACA-holders to renew while litigation continues.
Below is more details about these two items.
Trump & Congress members hold bipartisan talks about DACA
President Trump held talks between members of both parties to make a deal, which, according to reports after, would be a two-phase legislative approach. The phase one would create a solution to DACA paired with border security, ending family-based immigration, and end the visa lottery. Phase two would be a comprehensive immigration reform.
Of course,this was a staged conversation with more confusing information. This meeting left many of us with more questions. According to many, including White House staff, this was meant to show that Trump was working and is in control as opposed to that lazy, unintelligent man portrayed recently in a book about his first months in office. This meeting was confusing too because, as you can figure out, no one knows what “border security” means yet or what immigration reform would look like.
Trump at one point during the meeting said this DACA deal will be a “bill of love.” This is coming from the man who promised to get rid of DACA during the campaign, demonizes immigrants on an ongoing basis, rescinded DACA in the fall and ran on an anti-immigrant platform. While there was no mention of wall and Mexico paying for it during this meeting, Trump later tweeted that the wall has to be paired as part of a DACA deal.
Remember that in the fall, after Trump rescinded DACA, Democrats had said they had reached an agreement with Trump. Trump refuted that later. So I think it is safe to say, there is no real agreement yet, especially because no one from that meeting came out with clear information other than the regular sound-bites we’ve all heard before.
Federal Judge allows DACA to stay, with exceptions
A California Federal Judge ordered a national injunction regarding DACA with some exceptions while litigation continues. This is what it means:
The Trump Administration has been ordered to continue to implement DACA as if it was never rescinded (with exceptions explained below). The March 5th deadline Trump had created to end DACA no longer exists while there is pending litigation. Individuals who were granted DACA prior to Sept. 5, 2017 allowed to renew their DACA Individuals who were supposed to renew between October 2017 and March 5th, 2018 may renew. Individuals whose DACA expires after March 5th, 2018 may renew.Former and current DACA-holders proved to the court irreparable harm.
The exceptions are based on the understanding that irreparable harm was not proven to the court. The Court ruled that the Trump Administration does not have to:
Allow new applications from individuals who qualify to obtain DACA (no new DACA applications). Provide Advance Parole.This is a national injunction even though the judge who made this ruling is part of the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Given that immigration law/rules are to be applied nationally, and previous Courts have said so, Judge Alsup ruled this way too in order to maintain uniformity across the country regarding DACA and avoid confusion and numerous lawsuits across the nation.
No word from White House yet. They are the ones who will implement this so I'm curious as to what they'll do/say.
You can read the order here.