Today, in a 29-page opinion, after years of federal court litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Trump Administration’s 2017 effort to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, protecting approximately 700,000 DACA recipients from deportation and allowing them to continue to live and work in the U.S.

Herman Legal Group, an immigration law firm headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio with offices throughout the U.S., applauds this decision, which was anxiously anticipated by millions of people, including DACA recipients, their family members, future DACA recipients, as well as immigration reform activists around the country.

Richard Herman, an immigration reform activist, the co-author of the book, Immigrant, Inc., and the founder of the Herman Legal Group, believes DACA is still in danger of termination in the future:

“The Court’s decision was based on procedural — not policy— grounds, and the Trump Administration will almost certainly make efforts to articulate a new rationale for termination of DACA that may survive federal court scrutiny.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in an accompanying opinion, took issue with the majority opinion finding that Trump’s decision to end DACA was not “motivated by animus.”

Trump had made DACA and immigration a key issue for his campaign in 2015.

In analyzing the Court’s decision, Richard Herman, states the following:

“DACA survives for now, based on the Supreme Court’s holding that the Trump Administration was reckless and unreasonable in how it attempted to terminate the program;  DACA should reset to its original mandate in 2012 and NEW DACA applications must be accepted;  and Trump Administration will likely try to end DACA again, based on new rationale that might survive constitutional scrutiny.