White House: Judge's ruling on DACA 'good news for smuggling organizations'

Politico

By Cristiano Lima

April 25, 2018

White House: Judge's ruling on DACA 'good news for smuggling organizations'

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday that a judge’s ruling that the federal government must continue to extend protections to some young undocumented immigrants was “good news for smuggling organizations” but “horrible news for our national security.”

In the latest setback to President Donald Trump’s push to unwind the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, a third federal judge on Tuesday rejected his administration’s justification for the efforts.

U.S. District Court Judge John Bates called the Department of Homeland Security’s legal explanation for the decision to shutter the initiative “arbitrary and capricious.” DACA provides protection from deportation and work permits to some people who came to the U.S. as children and entered illegally or overstayed visas.

Speaking at the White House press briefing, Sanders blasted the ruling as “extraordinarily broad and wrong on the law.”

“This ruling is good news for smuggling organizations and criminal networks and horrible news for our national security,” the Trump spokeswoman said.

Sanders argued that the decision “creates an incentive for more illegal immigrant youth to come here and causes them to expect similar judicial policies be applied to them.”

Two other district court judges — both appointees of former President Bill Clinton — previously came to similar conclusions in rejecting the administration’s efforts. Bates was the first Republican appointee to rule against Trump’s push to wind down the initiative.

Trump in September announced plans to end the program, which faced heavy opposition from Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocacy groups.

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