WASHINGTON: The US Justice Department on Tuesday said it will ask the Supreme Court to overturn a judge’s ruling last week that blocked President Donald Trump’s move to end a program that protects hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children.
The Trump administration will file an appeal of the judge’s injunction directly with the conservative-majority Supreme Court as well as seeking to appeal to the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, the department said.
The Republican president in September rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program put in place in 2012 by his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama, effective in March. A variety of Democratic state attorneys general, organizations and individuals challenged Trump’s action in multiple federal courts.
The administration is challenging a Jan. 9 decision by San Francisco-based US District Judge William Alsup, who ruled that DACA must remain in place while the litigation is resolved.
The Justice Department is not filing an emergency application that, if successful, would result in the judge’s ruling being put on hold, which means the program will remain in effect during the litigation.
“It defies both law and common sense for DACA ... to somehow be mandated nationwide by a single district court in San Francisco,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement.
“We are now taking the rare step of requesting direct review on the merits of this injunction by the Supreme Court so that this issue may be resolved quickly and fairly for all the parties involved,” Sessions added.
Since the program was implemented, about 800,000 young adults dubbed Dreamers, mostly Hispanic, have been protected from deportation and allowed to work legally in the United States under DACA. As of September, when the most recent figures were made available, 690,000 young adults were protected under the program.
“Dreamers came out of the shadows based on a representation that if they qualified for the status, they would be allowed to stay in the country. Now they’re being used as bargaining chips in a high-stakes immigration policy debate in which their status should have no part,” said Mark Rosenbaum, an attorney for the public interest law firm Public Counsel, which represents six DACA recipients in the case.
Alsup’s ruling came during negotiations between Trump and congressional leaders over immigration policy. Those talks fell apart after Trump rejected a bipartisan deal and provoked outrage with his reported use of vulgar language to describe African countries in a meeting with lawmakers on immigration.
The Justice Department’s move to go directly to the Supreme Court is unusual as the administration is essentially seeking to circumvent the 9th Circuit appeals court, which has previously ruled against it over Trump’s travel bans on people entering the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries.
Even if the high court agrees to take up the case, it is unlikely to rule until its next term, which starts in October and runs until June 2019.
Trump administration to appeal ‘Dreamer’ immigrant ruling
Trump administration to appeal ‘Dreamer’ immigrant ruling
Indonesia reaffirms Yemen’s territorial integrity, backs stability efforts amid tensions
- Statement comes after Saudi Arabia bombed a UAE weapons shipment at Yemeni port city
- Jakarta last week said it ‘appreciates’ Riyadh ‘working together’ with Yemen to restore stability
JAKARTA: Indonesia has called for respect for Yemen’s territorial integrity and commended efforts to maintain stability in the region, a day after Saudi Arabia bombed a weapons shipment from the UAE at a Yemeni port city that Riyadh said was intended for separatist forces.
Saudi Arabia carried out a “limited airstrike” at Yemen’s port city of Al-Mukalla in the southern province of Hadramout on Tuesday, following the arrival of an Emirati shipment that came amid heightened tensions linked to advances by the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council in the war-torn country.
In a statement issued late on Wednesday, the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it “appreciates further efforts by concerned parties to maintain stability and security,” particularly in the provinces of Hadramout and Al-Mahara.
“Indonesia reaffirms the importance of peaceful settlement through an inclusive and comprehensive political dialogue under the coordination of the United Nations and respecting Yemen’s legitimate government and territorial integrity,” Indonesia’s foreign affairs ministry said.
The latest statement comes after Jakarta said last week that it “appreciates the efforts of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as other relevant countries, working together with Yemeni stakeholders to de-escalate tensions and restore stability.”
Saudi Arabia leads the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen, which includes the UAE and was established in 2015 to combat the Houthi rebels, who control most of northern Yemen.
Riyadh has been calling on the STC, which initially supported Yemen’s internationally recognized government against the Houthi rebels, to withdraw after it launched an offensive against the Saudi-backed government troops last month, seeking an independent state in the south.
Indonesia has also urged for “all parties to exercise restraint and avoid unilateral action that could impact security conditions,” and has previously said that the rising tensions in Yemen could “further deteriorate the security situation and exacerbate the suffering” of the Yemeni people.
Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country, maintains close ties with both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are its main trade and investment partners in the Middle East.
