Appeals court ruling keeps DACA alive

A U.S. appeals court Thursday let stand an order keeping the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in place, overriding President Donald Trump’s effort last year to end it. DACA allows people who were brought to the United States illegally as children to stay here but doesn’t grant them legal immigration status. The government reasoned that former President Barack Obama overstepped his executive authority when he created DACA.

“It’s a question of an agency saying, ‘We’re not going to have a policy that might well be illegal,’” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Hashim Mooppan told the judges in May. “That is a perfectly rational thing to do.” But a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that California and other states that sued to keep DACA would likely succeed in the end, so a lower court judge’s injunction blocking the end of the program should stay in place.