Sotomayor at DACA Oral Arguments: ‘This Is About Our Choice to Destroy Lives’

During oral arguments at the United States Supreme Court Tuesday on he future of the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) amnesty program, Justice Sonia Sotomayor injected politics into the discussion, saying President Donald Trump has said he would find a way to keep DACA recipients in the United States but has not done so.

Sotomayor also addressed what other justices cited — the “reliance interests” of DACA recipients, or how the government program has allowed illegal migrants to get Social Security numbers, drivers licenses, and work permits that they have come to rely on.

Sotomayor said:

I think my colleagues have rightly pointed [out] there’s a whole lot of reliance interests that weren’t looked at, including the very President of — current President telling DACA-eligible people that they were safe under him and that he would find a way to keep them here. And so he hasn’t and, instead, he’s done this. And that, I think, has something to be considered before you rescind a policy.

“Right,” Solicitor General Noel Francisco said.

Middle school teacher arrested in alleged prostitution scheme at casino hotel

Stranded hikers cling to steep California mountain ridge as helicopter crew swoops in

Longtime Serbian leader Vucic’s defeat at the hands of student movement leaves Washington in awkward position

Watch: El-Sayed Staffer Lets His True Feelings About Americans and the Muslim Brotherhood Slip in Devastating Undercover Video

DHS suspends visa-free travel program for Chinese nationals amid birth tourism, security concerns

Germans Furious After Audi CEO Teams with Trump to Announce New Georgia Plant

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to why removing Ilhan Omar from Congress could be harder than Trump expects

Billionaire with Epstein ties emerges as top Dem donor bankrolling ads weaponizing disgraced financier’s files

Utterly Incompetent WNBA Faces Potential Championship Game Disaster – Was it Because DEI Staff Failed to Book Stadium?

Powerful: Video Shows Grieving Mom Offer Illegal Alien Trucker Forgiveness Over Son’s Death: ‘I Pray for You’

Trump’s Board of Peace Selects Former Biden Admin Official for Key Role

Have You Seen Him? Police Search for Murderer Who Escaped Tennessee Prison

Breaking: Comey Charged for Reportedly Leaking National Security Secrets in 2016

Not even sky high gas prices or the Iran war will stop Trump supporters voting MAGA

James Comey charged with leaking national defense information

“Not just say I’ll give you six months to do it,” Sotomayer said, referring to Trump’s past announcement that he would hold off on rescinding DACA for six months to allow Congress to come up with a legislative solution.

“And where is the political decision made clearly?” Sotomayor said referring to the June 22, 2018 memorandum issued by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to explain why the department was rescinding DACA.

“That this is not about the law; this is about our choice to destroy lives,” Sotomayor said, directly expressing what she believed a ruling to end DACA would mean to those enrolled in it.

The back and forth between the justices, Francisco and two attorneys who argued for DACA petitioners — attorney Ted Olson and Michael Mongan, Solicitor General at California Department of Justice – included more discussion about the impact the ruling would have on both DACA recipients and the future enforcement of federal immigration law.

Olson and Mongan argued that the Trump administration did not provide a compelling reason for rescinding DACA, which came to the high court after differing results in lower court decisions on the matter.