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Donald Trump may be able to get the Arkansas dickhead otherwise known as Sen. Tom Cotton to lie about his racist “shithole” rants, but he can’t get away with everything all the time. Citing his many “racial slurs” and “epithets” as both a candidate and president, a federal judge said Thursday that a lawsuit from New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and 15 state attorneys general over the administration’s decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program can proceed:
The decision means plaintiffs can move forward with the suit which claims the president’s plan ran afoul of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which prohibits government officials from discriminating on the basis of race.
“Plaintiffs have alleged sufficient facts to raise a plausible inference that the DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] rescission was substantially motivated by unlawful discriminatory purpose,” Judge Nicholas Garaufis wrote.
Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers had tried to get the case dismissed last year by laughably “claiming that the plaintiffs in the case … had failed to make a persuasive case that DACA was rolled back in September because of a racial animus toward Latinos.” According to the New York Times, the judge ”specifically mentioned Mr. Trump’s statements about Mexico sending ‘criminals’ and “rapists’ to the United States and his verbal attacks on an American-born jurist of Mexican descent, Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel,” in his order.
“The court does not see why it must or should bury its head in the sand when faced with overt expressions of prejudice,” he wrote. “The court is aware of no authority holding that this rule does not apply simply because the speaker is, or is running to be, the President of the United States.” Schneiderman applauded the positive step, tweeting that "we look forward to continuing our litigation to protect Dreamers, along with the businesses and institutions they contribute to every day in New York and across the country.”
While recent court decisions have resurrected portions of DACA, new enrollees are still blocked from the program, shutting out thousands of young immigrants who are becoming old enough to apply. And when DACA’s future continue to be played out in court, as it is right now, it only highlights the urgency for Congress to act. “The fact that there are thousands of immigrant young people who are now at that point where they need to be protected,” said United We Dream’s Bruna Bouhid, “just shows you how important it is to have permanent legislation.”