Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump's Decision To End DACA

>>> President Trump reacted angrily this morning to a federal court's ruling, reinstating some of the provisions of the DACA program. Trump said the ruling by the judge showed how broken the court system is. But, the judge actually used statements tweeted by Trump in making his ruling, that ending DACA was a capricious and arbitrary move by the White House. Joining me to explain this is Glenn Smith, a constitutional locks -- professor at the California Western school of Law. Welcome. >> Thank you. >> What was the basic for the federal court injunction? And, let me clarify that, doesn't the president have the right to rescind a previous president's executive order? >> If we were only talking about an executive order, the president would have more of a right, but President Obama's original DACA executive order, and president Trump's rescission of that both had to be lamented by an administrative agency. In this case, the Department of Homeland Security. And any administrative agency, when it takes an initial position or changes a position, has to avoid being arbitrary and capricious. So, they needed a rational basis for their view that DACA was not legal, and the court, after going through an analysis, found they did not have such a rational basis. >> What was the administration's argument in the case? Why did they say they should be allowed to and DACA? >> There were two arguments, and one that they made during the litigation was that -- that the Obama administration did not have authority to adopt DACA in the first place, that DACA was an overreach of the president, and the executive branch's authority. And they relied in part on a District Court and a fifth circuit ruling out of Texas, which did not deal directly with DACA, but with the follow-up to DACA, the broader program that involved the family members of the dreamers. And so, they were facing a litigation challenge, and they said that the law went against DACA, it needed to be done by Congress. Then, after the lawsuit began, they made a more practical argument saying -- look, even if we are not right on legal merits, we face a lawsuit. So, as a practical matter we decided to pull in our horns. >> And what role did the presidents tweet or tweets playing this decision? >> That is the most interesting part, as you probably know -- the presidential tweets have been a big issue in the travel ban litigation. One of the interesting things about this case is that the District Court used the presidents favorable tweets, both before and after the rescission of trend -- DACA, where he said he supported the logic of protecting the dreamers against deportation, he used that as part of the showing that it was irrational to change the law. After all, if the chief executive tweeted both before and after that DACA was a good idea, then it was less rational to get rid of it. >> So, does this court decision mean that the DACA program is fully restored? >> It is mainly restored. And of course, you know -- inevitably, this is going to be appealed. This is not the last word. Although, ultimately if the political branches work out a legislative solution to DACA, that will moot the legal challenges here but, in the meantime. DACA, the DACA deadline, DACA was facing a deadline of March 5, at which time people that had already gotten deferred action could no longer ask for a renewal. And that has been put on hold. They can continue to request a renewal of their DACA status, and as long as this order holds, that will continue. There are a couple of more minor parts of DACA, that the court did not extend. But, basically the court was trying to return to the status quo, where people who already had one DACA release from deportation, could get it renewed. >> But no new applicants? Is that correct? >> That is correct. The opinion makes that clear, that -- I will quote it. DACA continues with the exception, number one, that new applications from applicants who have never before received deferred action need not be processed. >> President Trump, and his reaction, seems to indicate the reason that he lost this case was because it was decided by a California judge. You just said this will play out through the courts. But, does the president have a point? >> Well, certainly different judges look at different cases differently. I mean -- to state the obvious. But, I think -- I am disturbed as I have continue to be disturbed -- it is one thing to criticize the logic of the court really, it is another thing to criticize the legitimacy and imply that simply because a judge is from Hawaii, or California, or the Ninth Circuit, that they are not giving this there adequate judicial consideration. This is a well-reasoned, extensive opinion. It certainly does take some chances. Including, as we talked about a minute ago, use of the tweets. Certainly, you can argue it the other way, but to boil this down to simply -- oh, it is just a California judge. Or it is just the crazy Ninth Circuit. You are irresponsibly denigrating the courts in my view. >> I have been talking to Glenn Smith, constitutional law professor. Glenn, as always, thank you. >> You're welcome. [ Music ].