Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-587_5ifl.pdf
Page Number: 40

2 

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY v. 
REGENTS OF UNIV. OF CAL. 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

Between  2001  and  2011,  Congress  considered  over  two
dozen  bills  that  would  have  granted  lawful  status  to  mil-
lions of aliens who were illegally brought to this country as
children.  Each  of  those  legislative  efforts  failed.  In  the 
wake of this impasse, the Department of Homeland Secu-
rity  (DHS)  under  President  Barack  Obama  took  matters 
into  its  own  hands.    Without  any  purported  delegation  of 
authority from Congress and without undertaking a rule-
making,  DHS  unilaterally  created  a  program  known  as
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).  The three-
page  DACA  memorandum  made  it  possible  for  approxi-
mately  1.7  million  illegal  aliens  to  qualify  for  temporary 
lawful  presence  and  certain  federal  and  state  benefits. 
When President Donald Trump took office in 2017, his Act-
ing Secretary of Homeland Security, acting through yet an-
other  memorandum,  rescinded  the  DACA  memorandum. 
To  state  it  plainly,  the  Trump  administration  rescinded 
DACA  the  same  way  that  the  Obama  administration  cre-
ated it: unilaterally, and through a mere memorandum. 

Today the majority makes the mystifying determination 
that  this  rescission  of  DACA  was  unlawful.    In  reaching
that conclusion, the majority acts as though it is engaging
in the routine application of standard principles of admin-
istrative law.  On the contrary, this is anything but a stand-
ard administrative law case. 

DHS  created  DACA  during  the  Obama  administration
without  any  statutory  authorization  and  without  going 
through the requisite rulemaking process.  As a result, the 
program  was  unlawful  from  its  inception.  The  majority
does not even attempt to explain why a court has the au-
thority to scrutinize an agency’s policy reasons for rescind-
ing  an  unlawful  program  under  the  arbitrary  and  capri-
cious microscope.  The decision to countermand an unlawful 
agency action is clearly reasonable.  So long as the agency’s 
determination of illegality is sound, our review should be at 
an end.