SCOTUS To Hear DACA Case On Nov. 12

By Bret Jaspers
Published: Monday, July 8, 2019 - 1:09pm

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, on Nov. 12

The case affects the fate of Arizona’s roughly 26,100 DACA recipients and potentially thousands more. According to the most recent data published by the Migration Policy Institute, there were about 34,000 Arizonans in 2018 who met the criteria to apply for DACA status.

Nationally, there are almost 700,000 DACA recipients.

Former President Obama created the DACA program in 2012. It allowed certain qualified, undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to stay in the country for two years. The status could be renewed in two-year increments. 

In 2017, the Trump administration said it would end DACA. There have been legal fights ever since, and efforts at compromise in Congress have failed. 

The legal issues in the case include whether the Trump administration’s decision to wind down DACA needed to follow proper procedural steps.