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Page Number: 19.0

14 

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

Leavitt,  460  F. 3d  1,  5–6  (CADC  2006)  (Garland,  J.)  (per-
mitting an agency to provide an “amplified articulation” of 
a prior “conclusory” observation (internal quotation marks 
omitted)).  This route has important limitations.  When an 
agency’s initial explanation “indicate[s] the determinative 
reason for the final action taken,” the agency may elaborate
later on that reason (or reasons) but may not provide new 
ones.  Camp v. Pitts, 411 U. S. 138, 143 (1973) (per curiam).
Alternatively,  the  agency  can  “deal  with  the  problem
afresh” by taking new agency action.  SEC v. Chenery Corp., 
332 U. S. 194, 201 (1947) (Chenery II).  An agency taking
this route is not limited to its prior reasons but must comply
with the procedural requirements for new agency action.

The District Court’s remand thus presented DHS with a
choice: rest on the Duke Memorandum while elaborating on 
its prior reasoning, or issue a new rescission bolstered by
new reasons absent from the Duke Memorandum.  Secre-
tary Nielsen took the first path.  Rather than making a new
decision,  she  “decline[d]  to  disturb  the  Duke  memoran-
dum’s rescission” and instead “provide[d] further explana-
tion” for that action.  App. to Pet. for Cert. 121a.  Indeed, 
the  Government’s  subsequent  request  for  reconsideration
described  the  Nielsen  Memorandum  as  “additional  expla-
nation for [Duke’s] decision” and asked the District Court
to “leave in place [Duke’s] September 5, 2017 decision to re-
scind the DACA policy.”  Motion to Revise Order in No. 17– 
cv–1907 etc. (D DC), pp. 2, 19. Contrary to the position of 
the  Government  before  this  Court,  and  of  JUSTICE 
KAVANAUGH  in  dissent,  post,  at  4  (opinion  concurring  in
judgment in part and dissenting in part), the Nielsen Mem-
orandum was by its own terms not a new rule implementing 
a new policy.

Because Secretary Nielsen chose to elaborate on the rea-
sons for the initial rescission rather than take new admin-
istrative action, she was limited to the agency’s original rea-
sons,  and  her  explanation  “must  be  viewed  critically”  to