From the WES Immigration Team

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Dear WES Immigration Supporters,

Following is an update on what’s going on with the DACA (Dreamers) case in the Supreme Court. The court has NOT made a decision. However, they did accept a motion to accept a supplemental brief by the Dreamer’s legal team. Although the outcome of the case is uncertain, this is good news. We expect the case to be decided soon, sealing the fate of hundreds of thousands of Dreamers and their families.  Please see the update below from our friends at Home Is Here:

HOME IS HERE: Background and TPs on SCOTUS on Supplemental Brief
Background: On April 2, 2020 the plaintiffs in the Wolf v. Batalla Vidal case that is currently before the Supreme Court and challenges the Trump administration’s termination of DACA, submitted a motion to the Court asking the Court to consider (1) that the virus pandemic sharply illustrates the Trump administration’s failure to consider reliance interests when terminating DACA, including the life-sustaining role that nearly 30,000 DACA recipients who are front-line health workers, as well as the the hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients working in essential services, and (2) new evidence that the Trump Administration is planning to deport DACA recipients if the Court upholds the program’s termination. 

The motion was originally filed as a letter on March 27, 2020, but was shortly thereafter filed as a motion to file a supplemental brief to conform with the Court’s procedural requirements. The supplemental brief, with the same information as previously filed in the letter, was attached to the motion.

What happened today: The Court released their decision on whether they will accept the supplemental brief for consideration. The court granted the motion. This does NOT mean there is a decision on the DACA case. This is simply a yes on the Court accepting the supplemental brief. That decision doesn’t tell us anything about how the Court might rule in the DACA case itself, but it does mean the Supreme Court Justices will consider the arguments made in the brief in their decision making process.

What does this mean: 
  • We are pleased the Supreme Court accepted the filing of this important brief.
  • Supplemental briefs following oral arguments are very unusual, but these trying times call for extraordinary measures to ask the Supreme Court to consider the real-world consequences of the COVID-19 global health crisis and the Trump administration’s recent acknowledgements that they would move forward with deporting DACA recipients. 
    • In the past, litigants have filed letters to the Court to advise the Court of important events following oral arguments, including newly available factual information that may have an impact on the resolution of the merits of the case. One such example was in Dep’t of Commerce v. New York, No. 18-966, which led to a decision from the Court that kept the citizenship question off the 2020 Census.
  • The Trump administration had 10 days to respond to the supplemental brief. They chose not to respond.
    • The Trump administration’s lack of response can tell us a few things: first, that they can’t refute what the plaintiffs laid out in the brief; they can’t defend their cruelty and their disregard for the immigrants in the frontlines of the COVID-19 response. Second, that they don’t care about the consequences of the end of DACA to the more than 700,000 immigrants that currently benefit from the program, and the impact to the rest of the country, including the 256,000 U.S. citizen children of DACA recipients. Third, that they can’t deny their plans to try to deport DACA recipients if the termination is upheld.The letter and the subsequent brief, as well as the hundreds of stories of DACA recipients on the frontlines of the COVID-19 efforts have shown the American people the detrimental impact that a bad decision from the Court would have on the wellbeing of the country. 

List of stories to continue uplifting:

—WES Immigration Team