Kelly won't commit to defending DACA in court
By Ted Hesson
07/12/2017 04:42 PM EDT


An Obama-era deportation relief program may soon face a legal challenge — and the Trump administration won’t commit to defending it, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told Hispanic lawmakers at a closed-door meeting Wednesday on Capitol Hill.

Twenty Democratic members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus pressed Kelly for assurances that he would help preserve the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which grants deportation relief and access to work permits to undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. at a young age.

Kelly told the lawmakers that although he personally supports DACA, he can't guarantee that the administration would defend it in court. He also said that he’d consulted attorneys who told him the program wouldn’t survive a legal challenge.

“It’s not a pretty picture," Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who attended the meeting, told reporters. “The legal authorities that he’s spoken to suggest that DACA cannot be sustained legally. We have a different view.”

The secretary declined to take questions after the meeting, but a department spokesperson confirmed accounts from lawmakers.
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DACA's future has been uncertain since President Donald Trump, who pledged during the campaign to eliminate the program, took office. After his inauguration Trump said participants in the program, known as DREAMers, "shouldn't be very worried" and that "we're looking at it with great heart." In mid-June, DHS said on its website that DREAMers currently participating in the program would not have their work permits canceled prior to their scheduled expiration.

But a DHS spokesman followed up that web posting by stating, "The future of the DACA program continues to be under review." Then, in late June, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and his counterparts from nine other Republican-led states sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions that demanded the Trump administration rescind the program. If not, the coalition threatened, it would amend an ongoing lawsuit against another deportation relief program to target DACA as well. Such a move would compel the Trump administration to clarify a position on DACA that it's preferred to keep vague.

David Lapan, a department spokesperson, said Kelly spoke with several lawyers inside and outside the department to assess the odds that the program could survive a court challenge. “Most of them felt that DACA, as it exists, is not legally sustainable,” Lapan said.

Kelly's comments, and Lapan's, suggest the Trump administration likely won't defend DACA if it's challenged in court. At the meeting, Kelly urged Congress to find a legislative solution. Bipartisan bills in the House and Senate, dubbed the Bridge Act, would provide legal status for DACA recipients. But Kelly hasn’t given it his endorsement.

“He said the same dumb line, ‘Well, Congress should do something about it,’" Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said. "Well, obviously we want to do something about it."
FBI Director nominee Christopher Wray is pictured. | Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo

Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-Calif.) said the members asked Kelly whether he would publicly back a legal pathway for people covered by the program. “I told him we would invite him to a press conference in support of DACA legislation, and he said that he would consider it,” she said after the meeting.

Kelly recently trekked to Capitol Hill to back several Republican immigration enforcement bills in the House, but he has not advocated passage of a DACA bill.

“I mentioned the Bridge Act specifically, and it almost sounded like he didn’t even know what that was,” said Barragán.

The secretary also addressed the fate of countries that currently qualify for temporary protected status, a humanitarian program that allows people whose homelands have been struck by a natural disaster or conflict to live and work in the U.S.

The TPS status of Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador will expire early next year, but Kelly would not vow to renew them.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/12...hallenge-240470

Immigration Shocker: Trump Administration May Bail on DACA
DHS secretary suggests Obama executive amnesty not safe after all, feds won't defend in court
by Margaret Menge | Updated 13 Jul 2017 at 10:32 AM

Facing the threat of a lawsuit from Texas and nine other states, the Trump administration indicated Wednesday that it may decline to defend DACA in court, a move that would likely result in the end of the program that granted amnesty to illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. when they were children.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly went up to Capitol Hill on Wednesday afternoon to address members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, telling them, according to reports, that although he personally supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, he can’t promise that the administration will defend it if challenged.
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Several members of Congress pressured Kelly in the meeting, and he responded by suggesting they work to pass a law.

Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, a Cuban-American and a Democrat, told reporters after the meeting: "It's not a pretty picture."

At issue is the 2012 memorandum signed by President Barack Obama that allowed people brought to the U.S. illegally as children to apply for two-year work permits, and to be granted a reprieve from deportation. Anyone under 30 years of age who came to the U.S. illegally before the age of 16 and before June of 2007 is eligible.

The program was referred to by critics as a blanket amnesty, as it has effectively legalized more than 750,000 people who have been granted DACA status. These people have been able to live and work in the U.S. as though they were legal residents.

The Pew Research Center has estimated that another one million people already in the U.S. may qualify for DACA.

The policy led to a surge at the border in 2014 and 2015, with many families and unaccompanied minors flowing into Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.

"Logically, it really was the signal that if you get your kids here, we'll let you stay," Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform told LifeZette.

At the end of June, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with nine other state attorneys general, sent a letter to the Trump administration, threatening to sue if the administration did not, by Sept. 5, 2017, rescind the memo that created DACA.

"If, by September 5, 2017, the executive branch agrees to rescind the June 15, 2012, DACA memorandum and not to renew or issue any new DACA or Expanded DACA permits in the future, then the plaintiffs that successfully challenged [Deferred Action for Parents of Americans] and Expanded DACA will voluntarily dismiss their lawsuit currently pending in the Southern District of Texas," he wrote. "Otherwise, the complaint in that case will be amended to challenge both the DACA program and the remaining Expanded DACA permits."

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly said about illegal immigrants: "They can't stay."

"Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation," he said at one rally.

At another he promised: "We will immediately terminate President Obama's two illegal executive amnesties, in which he defied federal law and the Constitution to give amnesty to approximately 5 million illegal immigrants."

But after he was inaugurated, Trump softened and seemed to indicate that he wouldn't prioritize ending DACA, saying about so-called dreamers: "They shouldn't be very worried, I do have a big heart."

"The problem is, DACA is illegal," Mark Kirikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies said last month. In January, he'd written that it seemed as though Trump was breaking his promise on DACA by continuing to approve DACA status for illegal aliens.

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http://www.lifezette.com/polizette/immig...y-bail-on-daca/