A Victory for the Law: Maryland Judge Upholds DACA Phaseout
6th March 2018
Judge Titus noted early on that the issue before him is not whether DACA is lawful. Rather, the issue is whether the Trump administration “made a reasoned decision to rescind DACA based on the Administrative Record.” “Any alternative inquiry,” he wrote, “would impermissibly require a court to “substitute its judgment for that of the agency.”
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Judge Titus also found that “the Administrative Record — the basis from which the Court must make its judicial review — does not support the notion that [the president’s order] was targeting a subset of the immigrant population, and it does not support any supposition that the decision was derived on a racial animus.” He rejected the argument that Trump’s harsh comments about illegal immigrants, and others, provide a basis for invalidating a program as improperly motivated.
A judge who doesn’t pretend to be a mind-reader. How refreshing.