The nine judges will give an opinion in June on the device that has been protecting some 700,000 undocumented young people since 2012 and which the Trump administration wants to put an end to.
At 32, Vicente Rodriguez, a smooth, shiny mustache, has never left the United States since he entered illegally with his parents at the age of four months. Due to lack of proper documentation, this California-based educator can not travel and spent part of his life in fear of being deported to Mexico, a country he does not know.
In 2012, Democratic President Barack Obama's decision to give DACA-Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals to some 700,000 young people who arrived illegally in the United States as children, granted him a break. The young man can then pass his driving license, pursue studies, work. But the relief is short-lived. In 2017, the Trump administration, judging this measure "Illegal", announces the end of DACA and plunges dreamers (dreamers), a name that these young people gave themselves in pursuit of the "American dream", in a new legal uncertainty.
It is this decision, repeatedly suspended by the courts, that the Supreme Court of the United States examined Tuesday, November 12, while thousands of people showed their support in slogans and songs to Vicente and all young people – mainly from Mexico and Central America – threatened by the end of DACA.
Anti-immigration policy
The nine judges appeared divided on whether to rule on the removal of this provision, the most sensitive litigation on immigration with the construction of the wall wanted by Donald Trump on the Mexican border. Conservative judges seem inclined to follow the advice of the Republican administration, whose decision has been ruled "Arbitrary and capricious" by the courts. However, US administrative law requires the executive to justify its decisions "Rational"; Judges could therefore rely on the discretionary power of the executive branch to hold that justice does not have to be decided. Beyond the legal arguments, they could also be sensitive to the anti-immigration policy justification of the administration, for which a cancellation of the protective device would dissuade a new wave of arrivals.
The liberal judges have stressed the difficulty of demonstrating the illegality of the decision taken by Mr. Obama and put forward the contribution of the dreamers, educated and raised in the United States, to American society. "These young people do not steal from anyone; you have to give them a place to lead a good life "also insists Leslie Backus, a teacher from Maryland who has come to support young people in the cold and rain in the Supreme Court. Especially since a growing number of them now have children, American citizens born in the United States. Karina Andres, teacher in Texas, is in this case. She prefers "Do not think about the worst" but if she were to lose her status and be deported to Mexico, the question would arise: to leave with her children in this unknown country or to leave them with their father in the United States.
