“Many white people, while clinging to power and privilege, are racist as fuck. Donald Trump has displayed this at every juncture. If Congress remedies this by kicking the president out of office, maybe Republicans will act with common sense.” —M. Harriot
While that statement might be a grammatical clusterfuck of baseless opinion, it is also the exact inverse of Donald Trump’s top-of the-morning dog-whistle acknowledging that the Supreme Court will review his plan of upending the lives of 690,000 young immigrants.
On Tuesday, America’s highest court will hear arguments on the Trump administration’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The immigration policy is an executive branch memorandum signed by President Barack Obama in 2012 and allows people between the ages of 16 and 30 to defer deportation, attend school, work and pay taxes for renewable two-year periods, according to CNN.
Contrary to Trump’s xenophobic implications, DACA recipients must undergo extensive background checks, complete education requirements and stay out of any legal trouble. Studies have also shown that undocumented immigrants commit less crime than native-born Americans and are associated with lower crime rates.
The Trump White House decided to end the program because…umm...they’re racist and they hate Obama. Seriously, part of the reason why the Supreme Court will hear the argument is that the administration couldn’t come up with a legal or logical explanation for why they wanted to kick hundreds of thousands of law-abiding taxpayers out of the country except that Trump just wanted to do it.
USA Today reports:
Nearly every federal court to consider the question has blocked the administration from ending the DACA program. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, based in California and a continuing thorn in Trump’s side, ridiculed the effort to deport “blameless and economically productive young people with clean criminal records.”
The Supreme Court’s willingness to hear the case signals a potential win for the White House, but how it wins would be crucial. If the justices say Trump has the same discretion to end the program that Obama had in creating it, a future president just as easily could renew it. If they agree with the Justice Department that it’s unlawful, Congress would have to step in.
Opposing the administration are lawyers representing California, New York, the District of Columbia and an array of “Dreamers.” Nearly three dozen legal briefs have been submitted on their side by groups representing big business, educators, religious institutions, labor unions, law enforcement and national security, along with immigration and civil rights organizations.
Since taking office, Trump has tweeted about DACA 62 times, noting Obama’s “confession” that DACA is illegal and it hurts the economy.
That is a lie.
Politifact has rated Trump’s Obama smear as “Mostly False” and economists have explained that ending DACA would hurt the American economy. Now, in anticipation of a loss, Trump says he wants a deal on DACA and the Dream Act.
A Supreme Court decision isn’t expected until Spring 2020.
Hopefully, Trump will hear about it all from a jail cell.