Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-587_5ifl.pdf
Page Number: 22.0

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

17 

Opinion of the Court 

Park, 401 U. S., at 419 (rejecting “litigation affidavits” from
agency officials as “merely ‘post hoc’ rationalizations”).3 

Justice  Holmes  famously  wrote  that  “[m]en  must  turn 
square corners when they deal with the Government.”  Rock 
Island, A. & L. R. Co. v. United States, 254 U. S. 141, 143 
(1920).  But it is also true, particularly when so much is at
stake, that “the Government should turn square corners in 
dealing  with  the  people.”    St.  Regis  Paper  Co.  v.  United 
States, 368 U. S. 208, 229 (1961) (Black, J., dissenting).  The 
basic rule here is clear: An agency must defend its actions
based on the reasons it gave when it acted.  This is not the 
case for cutting corners to allow DHS to rely upon reasons 
absent from its original decision. 

B 
We  turn,  finally,  to  whether  DHS’s  decision  to  rescind 
DACA was arbitrary and capricious.  As noted earlier, Act-
ing Secretary Duke’s justification for the rescission was suc-
cinct: “Taking into consideration” the Fifth Circuit’s conclu-
sion that DAPA was unlawful because it conferred benefits 
in violation of the INA, and the Attorney General’s conclu-
sion  that  DACA  was  unlawful  for  the  same  reason,  she 
concluded—without elaboration—that the “DACA program
should be terminated.”  App. to Pet. for Cert. 117a.4 

—————— 

3 JUSTICE KAVANAUGH further argues that the contemporaneous expla-
nation  requirement  applies  only  to  agency  adjudications,  not  rule-
makings.  Post, at 5–6 (opinion concurring in judgment in part and dis-
senting in part).  But he cites no authority limiting this basic principle—
which the Court regularly articulates in the context of rulemakings—to
adjudications.  The Government does not even raise this unheralded ar-
gument. 

4 The Government  contends  that  Acting  Secretary  Duke also  focused 
on litigation risk.  Although the background section of her memo refer-
ences a letter from the Texas Attorney General threatening to challenge 
DACA, the memo never asserts that the rescission was intended to avert 
litigation.  And, given the Attorney General’s conclusion that the policy 
was  unlawful—and  thus  presumably  could  not  be  maintained  or  de-
fended in its current form—it is difficult to see how the risk of litigation