Supreme Court Blocks DACA Discovery Orders
Amy Howe on SCOTUSBlog reports that, late last Friday, the Supreme Court put on hold a set of lower-court orders that would require the federal government to turn over additional documents related to the Trump administration’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that allowed undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children to apply for relief from removal. In litigation challenging the decision to terminate DACA, a federal district court ruled that the government should produce documents beyond those that it turned over discovery, including documents from the White House and the Department of Justice and documents from the Department of Homeland Security. The district court instructed the government to “be ready to file” a complete set of documents by December 22. The Trump administration asked the justices to intervene.
In a brief, unsigned order, the Supreme Court indicated that the district court’s orders, at least “to the extent they require discovery and addition to the administrative record filed by the government,” would be stayed until the justices can act on the government’s petition challenging the orders.
Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, filed a 10 page, strongly worded dissent. Breyer wrote that the relief that the government is requesting is “’a drastic and extraordinary’ remedy ‘reserved for really extraordinary causes’” – but this case doesn’t even “come close.”
According to Josh Gerstein on Politico, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who is pressing one of the suits, expressed puzzlement at the federal government’s resistance to the effort to probe the basis for its DACA decision.
“What is the Trump Administration trying so hard to hide?” Becerra asked. “The Administration owes the American people a real explanation for its decision to upend the lives of 800,000 Dreamers, stripping them of their ability to work and study, stirring fear, and threatening our economy. We’ll keep fighting in court for Dreamers, particularly the one in four DACA grantees who call California home.”
KJ