Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-587_5ifl.pdf
Page Number: 14.0

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

9 

Opinion of the Court 

whether the rescission was arbitrary and capricious in vio-
lation of the APA, and (3) whether the plaintiffs have stated
an equal protection claim. 

II 
The  dispute  before  the  Court  is  not  whether  DHS  may
rescind DACA.  All parties agree that it may.  The dispute
is  instead  primarily  about  the  procedure  the  agency  fol-
lowed in doing so. 

The  APA  “sets  forth  the  procedures  by  which  federal
agencies  are  accountable  to  the  public  and  their  actions
subject to review by the courts.”  Franklin v. Massachusetts, 
505 U. S. 788, 796 (1992).  It requires agencies to engage in
“reasoned  decisionmaking,”  Michigan  v.  EPA,  576  U. S. 
743, 750 (2015) (internal quotation marks omitted), and di-
rects  that  agency  actions  be  “set  aside”  if  they  are  “arbi-
trary”  or  “capricious,”  5  U. S. C.  §706(2)(A).    Under  this 
“narrow standard of review, . . . a court is not to substitute 
its judgment for that of the agency,” FCC v. Fox Television 
Stations, Inc., 556 U. S. 502, 513 (2009) (internal quotation
marks omitted), but instead to assess only whether the de-
cision was “based on a consideration of the relevant factors 
and whether there has been a clear error of judgment,” Cit-
izens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc. v. Volpe, 401 U. S. 402, 
416 (1971).

But before determining whether the rescission was arbi-
trary  and  capricious,  we  must  first  address  the  Govern-
ment’s  contentions  that  DHS’s  decision  is  unreviewable 
under the APA and outside this Court’s jurisdiction. 

A 
The  APA  establishes  a  “basic  presumption  of  judicial 
review [for] one ‘suffering legal wrong because of agency ac-
tion.’ ”  Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 140 
(1967) (quoting §702).  That presumption can be rebutted 
by a showing that the relevant statute “preclude[s]” review,