Immigration Reform: Trump Says He'll Try Again to End DACA, Accuses Supreme Court Of Punting The Issue

President Trump said Friday he would submit “enhanced” paperwork to end deportation protections for so-called Dreamers following the Supreme Court ruling that said the administration failed to follow proper procedures in trying to end the 8-year-old program.

Trump accused the high court of punting the issue in Thursday’s ruling, which called the administration program to end the Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals – DACA – program “arbitrary and capricious,” violating the Administrative Procedure Act. The court did not address the merits or legality of the program.

“We will be submitting enhanced papers shortly in order to properly fulfil the Supreme Court’s ruling & request of yesterday,” Trump tweeted, again calling on Congress to act on immigration reform. “I have wanted to take care of DACA recipients better than the Do Nothing Democrats, but for two years they refused to negotiate - They have abandoned DACA.”

He noted the ruling does nothing to advance efforts to give Dreamers – people who were brought to the U.S. without proper documentation as children – a path to citizenship.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1273967324681338880

Trump Thursday took the court ruling personally, saying the justices ruled the way they did because they do not like him.

Immigration reform has been stymied in Congress for years. The so-called Gang of Eight, a bipartisan group of senators, crafted a measure in 2013 that died in the Republican-controlled House. Efforts to revive it in 2017 died in a spat over funding for Trump’s border wall.

Trump has made opposition to immigration – both legal and illegal – a hallmark of his administration. Immigrants make up nearly 14% of the U.S. population – 28% if their U.S.-born children are counted – with Mexican immigrants making up the greatest proportion but immigrants from South and East Asia are catching up.

Estimates on the number of undocumented immigrants range as high as 12 million, with more than half having lived in the U.S. for at least a decade and nearly a third with at least one child who was born in the U.S.