Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-587_5ifl.pdf
Page Number: 31

26 

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY v. 
REGENTS OF UNIV. OF CAL. 
Opinion of the Court 

Had  Duke  considered  reliance  interests,  she  might,  for
example, have considered a broader renewal period based
on the need for DACA recipients to reorder their affairs.  Al-
ternatively,  Duke  might  have  considered  more  accommo-
dating termination dates for recipients caught in the mid-
dle of a time-bounded commitment, to allow them to, say,
graduate from their course of study, complete their military 
service,  or  finish  a  medical  treatment  regimen.    Or  she 
might have instructed immigration officials to give salient 
weight to any reliance interests engendered by DACA when
exercising individualized enforcement discretion.

To be clear, DHS was not required to do any of this or to 
“consider all policy alternatives in reaching [its] decision.” 
State Farm, 463 U. S., at 51.  Agencies are not compelled to
explore  “every  alternative  device  and  thought  conceivable 
by the mind of man.”  Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. 
v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 435 U. S. 519, 
551 (1978).  But, because DHS was “not writing on a blank 
slate,” post, at 22, n. 14 (opinion of THOMAS, J.), it was re-
quired to assess whether there were reliance interests, de-
termine whether they were significant, and weigh any such
interests against competing policy concerns.

The lead dissent sees all the foregoing differently.  In its 
view, DACA is illegal, so any actions under DACA are them-
selves illegal.  Such actions, it argues, must cease immedi-
ately and the APA should not be construed to impede that
result.  See post, at 19–23 (opinion of THOMAS, J.).

The dissent is correct that DACA was rescinded because 
of  the  Attorney  General’s  illegality  determination.    See 
ante,  at  20.    But  nothing  about  that  determination  fore-
closed  or  even  addressed  the  options  of  retaining  forbear-
ance or accommodating particular reliance interests.  Act-
ing Secretary Duke should have considered those matters 
but did not.  That failure was arbitrary and capricious in
violation of the APA.