This archive report was first published on 18 June 2020.
On June 18, 2020, the US Supreme Court delivered a significant blow to President Donald Trump's immigration policies, rejecting his attempt to cancel the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
The court's five-to-four decision, with Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the liberal members, found that the Trump administration's 2017 move to cancel the DACA program was 'arbitrary and capricious' under government administrative procedures.
The court emphasized that its decision was not an assessment of the correctness of the 2012 DACA program itself, but rather a ruling that the Trump administration had violated official government procedures in rescinding the program.
The decision came three and a half years after Trump entered office, promising to halt almost all immigration and expel the estimated 10 million people living in the US without legal immigration documents.
The Obama administration had introduced the DACA policy in 2012, offering protection and authorization to work to people brought into the US illegally as children and growing up there.
