Judge Orders DACA Program to Be Restarted

Back in April, US District Judge John Bates gave the Trump administration 90 days to provide some kind of rationale for why the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, aka DACA, was unlawful, which is what the Department of Homeland Security claimed when the program was officially rescinded in March. DHS apparently didn't offer such proof, and on Friday Bates ordered DACA to be restarted in full, Politico reports. Reuters notes that Bates' decision applies not only to DACA renewals, but also to new applications. The DACA restart will be delayed until Aug. 23 to give the government the chance to appeal. Bates is the third judge so far to slap back the Trump administration's attempts to get rid of the program.

In his 25-page opinion cited by NPR, Bates also nixed a previous DHS motion to void his previous decision that the administration's reasoning for pulling back the program—which allows immigrants who came to the US as children (known as "Dreamers") to legally remain and work here with permits—was "arbitrary and capricious." On Friday, Bates noted in his ruling that the government's arguments for why DACA should end were still "inadequately explained." "A conclusory assertion that a prior policy is illegal, accompanied by a hodgepodge of illogical or post hoc policy assertions, simply will not do," Bates wrote. (More DACA stories.)