Government wins victory in upholding Trump DACA order

The government won a victory Tuesday in its battle to uphold President Donald Trump’s order canceling a program that protects young people who illegally entered the country as children when a Manhattan appeals court put the brakes on two legal challenges.

The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put a hold on court-ordered government production of documents on the Trump administration’s decision, which affects about 800,000 young people, and said Brooklyn U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis should first rule on whether the challenges should be dismissed on their face.

In September, Trump said he would end President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program in March. Beneficiaries of the program, as well as New York and other states sued, but the Justice Department says a decision on removing foreigners who entered the country illegally is an exercise of “prosecutorial review” that is outside courts’ purview.

After the Second Circuit ordered Garaufis to decide his jurisdiction “expeditiously,” the judge ordered the two sides to finish submitting papers by Nov. 1. Similar challenges are pending in three other states.