A federal judge ruled this past Saturday that because Chad Wolf was unlawfully appointed acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the memo he signed this past summer gutting the successful and popular Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program is also invalid.
Karen Tumlin, an attorney in the ongoing litigation against the Trump administration over its years-long effort to end the program, told NBC News that the ruling striking down Unlawful Chad’s unlawful memo could affect up to a million young immigrants. "This is really a hopeful day for a lot of young people across the country,” she said.
Unlawful Chad should have reopened DACA to new applicants following the Supreme Court’s historic decision last June finding the Trump administration unlawfully ended the program in September 2017, but this coifed mini-fascist instead ignored it and issued the memo rejecting new applicants and slashing protections for current and former enrollees from two years to just one.
“The plaintiffs asked the court to invalidate this latest attack on DACA so that the government would be required to process first-time DACA applications, two-year renewals, and advance parole requests,” plaintiff Make the Road New York said in a statement received by Daily Kos. “The court’s ruling today now makes that relief likely.” Tumlin said in a tweet on Monday that parties are scheduled to return to court on Wednesday to discuss next steps.
Among the young immigrants who would be eligible for relief if the program is fully reopened would be Johana Larios, a Make the Road New York member and plaintiff in Batalla Vidal v. Wolf. She called the decision, “an incredible victory for DACA recipients and first-time applicants like me.”
“DACA has opened so many opportunities for hundreds of thousands of youth and now I hope to be able to go through with my application,” she said in the Make the Road New York statement. “With DACA I hope to be able to return to school, and feel safe from being separated from my young children.” That’s what this administration has spent years trying to block through its attacks on DACA—and done it on legally shaky ground.
It was only after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that Unlawful Chad was unlawfully installed that the administration bothered to officially submit his nomination. Now just weeks away from the end of this godforsaken administration, it’s still reportedly trying to push it through, likely solely because of decisions like Judge Nicholas Garaufis’ this past weekend.
“The court has reaffirmed what we always knew: Chad Wolf was not authorized to perform the functions of an acting secretary when he issued the July 28 DACA Memo,” National Immigration Law Center staff attorney Trudy S. Rebert said in the statement. “This is a victory for our courageous plaintiffs, DACA-eligible youth across the country, and all of our communities. We remain steadfast in our commitment to ensure that the Trump administration is accountable to the law and immigrant youth remain safe and have the freedom to thrive here at home.”
CBS News reported that DHS slammed Garaufis as an “activist judge” and claimed it’s "exploring its options to ensure its review of DACA continues as intended,” possibly signaling it’s ready to defy more court orders. Why none of these motherfuckers haven’t been thrown in jail for contempt is beyond me, folks. But what I do know is that no matter what else the Trump administration tries, the incoming Biden administration has confirmed it intends to act on protecting young undocumented immigrants come Jan. 20.
“We have a big stack of business for day one already,” incoming White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain said this past weekend according to Chicago Sun-Times. “We’re going to rejoin Paris, we’re going to protect the Dreamers on day one, we’re going to take other action on health care on day one that the president-elect’s talked about during the campaign. So, we’ve got a busy, busy day one on ready scenario here.”
