The University of California filed a lawsuit Friday alleging that President Trump’s “capricious” decision to rescind DACA was unconstitutional.
“This lawsuit…challenges Defendants’ unlawful decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program, which protected from deportation nearly 800,000 individuals brought to this country as children, known as Dreamers,” the legal document states.
The university argues that Trump’s move is “unconstitutional, unjust, and unlawful” because it “violates both the procedural and substantive requirements of the [Administrative Procedure Act],as well as the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.”
“As a result of Defendants’ actions, the Dreamers face expulsion from the only country that they call home, based on nothing more than unreasoned executive whim,” the lawsuit states.
The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) is a law that governs the manner in which the federal administrative agencies implement various regulations. According to the lawsuit, Trump’s administration did not “articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action,” thereby failing to fulfill a core requirement under the APA.
“In determining whether an agency has complied with this requirement, a court must conduct a ‘thorough, probing, in-depth review’ of the agency’s reasoning and a ‘searching and careful’ inquiry into the factual underpinnings of the agency’s decision,” UC argues, referencing previous court decisions.
“Here, in multiple respects, Defendants failed to ‘articulate a satisfactory explanation’ for their action that would enable a court to conclude that the decision was ‘the product of reasoned decisionmaking.’”
Another argument in the lawsuit states that Trump’s actions are in violation of the Due Process Clause and are, therefore, unconstitutional.
“Finally, in rescinding DACA, Defendants violated the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution by failing to provide the University with any process before depriving it of the value of the public resources it invested in DACA recipients, and the benefits flowing from DACA recipients’ contributions to the University,” the plaintiffs argue.
“More fundamentally, they failed to provide DACA recipients with any process before depriving them of their work authorizations and DACA status, and the benefits that flow from that status.”
According to The Los Angeles Times, UC system President Janet Napolitano issued a statement calling for the defense of the “vital members of the UC community” who represent “the best of who we are.”
Read the rest at: DACA
