On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling that’s a major rebuke of President Donald Trump and his efforts to eliminate protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy. The ruling means the administration cannot deport hundreds of thousands who were brought to the United States as children, often by their parents.
The 5-4 ruling was made possible by Chief Justice John Roberts, who sided with the high court’s four liberal justices, and Roberts also took the court’s newest justice, Brett Kavanaugh, to task for what he wrote in his dissent.
In his ruling, Roberts noted:
“Justice Kavanaugh asserts that this ‘foundational principle of administrative law’ … actually limits only what lawyers may argue, not what agencies may do. While it is true that the Court has often rejected justifications belatedly advanced by advocates, we refer to this as a prohibition on post hoc rationalizations, not advocate rationalizations, because the problem is the timing, not the speaker.”
The Chief Justice then added:
“The functional reasons for requiring contemporaneous explanations apply with equal force regardless whether post hoc justifications are raised in court by those appearing on behalf of the agency or by agency officials themselves.”
Additionally, in a footnote, Roberts also made sure and called Kavanaugh out once again by name, making the humiliation complete:
“Justice Kavanaugh further argues that the contemporaneous explanation requirement applies only to agency adjudications, not rulemakings. But he cites no authority limiting this basic principle — which the Court regularly articulates in the context of rulemakings — to adjudications. The Government does not even raise this unheralded argument.”
As you’d expect, President Trump couldn’t resist weighing in on the DACA decision, even going to far as to suggest that the Supreme Court doesn’t like him:
These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives. We need more Justices or we will lose our 2nd. Amendment & everything else. Vote Trump 2020!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2020
Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn’t like me?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2020
It’s ironic that even Trump’s handpicked justices — Gorsuch and Kavanaugh — haven’t been able to help him during this term of the court. Now maybe they’ll force him to release his taxes, too.
Featured Image Via NBC News
