Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-587_5ifl.pdf
Page Number: 4.0

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

Nielsen nine months later.  Judicial review of agency action, however, 
is  limited  to  “the  grounds  that  the  agency  invoked  when  it  took  the
action.”  Michigan  v.  EPA, 576  U. S.  743,  758.    If  those  grounds  are
inadequate, a court may remand for the agency to offer “a fuller expla-
nation of the agency’s reasoning at the time of the agency action,” Pen-
sion  Benefit  Guaranty  Corporation  v.  LTV  Corp.,  496  U. S.  633,  654 
(emphasis added), or to “deal with the problem afresh” by taking new 
agency action, SEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U. S. 194, 201.  Because Sec-
retary Nielsen chose not to take new action, she was limited to elabo-
rating on the agency’s original reasons.  But her reasoning bears little
relationship to that of her predecessor and consists primarily of imper-
missible “post hoc rationalization.”  Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, 
Inc. v. Volpe, 401  U. S.  402,  420.    The  rule  requiring  a new  decision 
before  considering  new  reasons  is  not  merely  a  formality.  It  serves 
important  administrative  law  values  by  promoting  agency  accounta-
bility to the public, instilling confidence that the reasons given are not 
simply convenient litigating positions, and facilitating orderly review. 
Each of these values would be markedly undermined if this Court al-
lowed DHS to rely on reasons offered nine months after the rescission 
and after three different courts had identified flaws in the original ex-
planation.  Pp. 13–17. 

(b)  Acting Secretary Duke’s rescission memorandum failed to con-
sider important aspects of the problem before the agency.  Although
Duke was bound by the Attorney General’s determination that DACA 
is illegal, see 8 U. S. C. §1103(a)(1), deciding how best to address that
determination  involved  important  policy  choices  reserved  for  DHS. 
Acting Secretary Duke plainly exercised such discretionary authority 
in winding down the program, but she did not appreciate the full scope 
of her discretion.  The Attorney General concluded that the legal de-
fects in DACA mirrored those that the courts had recognized in DAPA.
The  Fifth  Circuit,  the  highest  court  to  offer  a  reasoned  opinion  on 
DAPA’s  legality,  found  that  DAPA  violated  the  INA  because  it  ex-
tended eligibility for benefits to a class of unauthorized aliens.  But the 
defining  feature  of DAPA  (and  DACA)  is  DHS’s  decision  to  defer  re-
moval, and the Fifth Circuit carefully distinguished that forbearance 
component from the associated benefits eligibility.  Eliminating bene-
fits  eligibility  while  continuing  forbearance  thus  remained  squarely 
within Duke’s discretion.  Yet, rather than addressing forbearance in
her decision, Duke treated the Attorney General’s conclusion regard-
ing the illegality of benefits as sufficient to rescind both benefits and 
forbearance, without explanation.  That reasoning repeated the error 
in Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association of the United States, Inc. 
v. State Farm— treating a rationale that applied to only part of a policy
as sufficient to rescind the entire policy.  463 U. S. 29, 51.  While DHS