The US Supreme Court has ruled against President Donald Trump’s bid to end a major programme that protects young immigrants from deportation.
The justices upheld lower court rulings that found his move to rescind Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) was “unlawful”.
It protects “Dreamers”, about 650,000 young people who entered the US without documents as children.
The Trump administration has sought to end the Obama-era policy since 2017.
The Supreme Court took up the case after lower courts ruled that the Trump administration did not adequately explain why it was ending the programme, criticising the White House’s “capricious” explanations.
On Thursday, the justices voted 5-4 to uphold the lower courts’ findings that the administration’s order violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which says a government action cannot make policy that is “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion or otherwise not in accordance with law” or “unsupported by substantial evidence”.
Mr Trump denounced the decision in a series of tweets.
“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 Conservative,” he wrote.
He called on voters to re-elect him in November to put more conservative judges in the court, should there be a vacancy.
He also suggested that he would renew efforts to end the programme and “start the process all over again”.
“Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn’t like me?” he tweeted.
Former President Barack Obama praised the ruling and urged voters to elect a Democratic president and Congress in November to ensure “a system that’s truly worthy of this nation of immigrants once and for all”.
Joe Biden, the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, said he would seek to make the programme permanent should he beat Mr Trump. – BBC.
