NEW YORK — For the second time in two months, a federal judge has stepped into an intense political fight over immigration policy, ordering the Trump administration to keep in place the embattled program known as DACA, which protects young unauthorized immigrants from deportation.
The nationwide injunction, issued Tuesday by Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of US District Court in Brooklyn, came a month after a court in California ruled the administration needed to spare Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
Garaufis’s ruling in many ways echoed the one by Judge William Alsup of US District Court in San Francisco. But it offered additional reasons why DACA should remain in place as the case continues through the courts and detailed the harms its repeal would cause to young immigrants and others.
On Sept. 5, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the Trump administration planned to end DACA gradually, saying the program had been unconstitutionally established by President Obama in 2012. The Department of Homeland Security is still considering pending DACA applications and renewal requests from recipients whose benefits expire by March. But the department plans to reject all applications after that.
After Sessions’ announcement, a coalition of immigration lawyers and a group of 16 Democratic state attorneys general, led by Eric Schneiderman of New York, filed separate but linked lawsuits in Brooklyn, claiming the repeal was an “arbitrary and capricious’’ decision largely motivated by a “racial animus’’ against Latinos.
Garaufis agreed the rollback was arbitrary and capricious, but while he has criticized President Trump from the bench for his anti-immigrant tweets and public statements, the judge made no mention of racial animus in his findings.
Under the ruling, the government will have to maintain DACA as it was before the Sept. 5 announcement. But it does not have to accept new applications, and it can decide renewal requests case-by-case. While Garaufis noted he was sympathetic to those who were unable to apply for DACA before Sept. 5, he added that the injunction would not apply to them.
Immigration lawyers who brought the case nonetheless hailed his ruling as a victory.
“During a week when the Senate is having a battle over immigration, we now have two judges saying that what happened on Sept. 5 was not justified,’’ said Marisol Orihuela, a lawyer from Yale Law School. “This sends a clear message to lawmakers to act and pass something.’’
Schneiderman said the judge had affirmed the states’ position. “Federal courts from coast to coast have now reviewed the record and reached the same conclusion,’’ he said. “President Trump’s decision to rescind DACA was illegal.’’
Devin O’Malley, a Justice Department spokesman, reiterated arguments the government made before Garaufis, saying DACA was “an unlawful circumvention of Congress.’’
“Promoting and enforcing the rule of law is vital to protecting a nation, its borders, and its citizens,’’ O’Malley added. “The Justice Department will continue to vigorously defend this position, and looks forward to vindicating its position in further litigation.’’
