Marc Thiessen on Supreme Court DACA decision: 'Justice Roberts avoiding controversial outcomes'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen said on Friday that the Supreme Court is “avoiding controversial outcomes” after its decision to reject President Trump’s bid to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that protects from deportation those who entered the U.S. illegally as children.
“The Obama administration didn’t follow the administrative procedures in implementing DACA, so, they’re saying it was unlawful for the president to withdraw it because he didn’t follow the administrative procedures act, but, the underlying order was unlawful because it also didn’t follow it,” Thiessen told “America’s Newsroom.”
Thiessen said Trump has to follow all of the administrative procedures in order for it to be deemed lawful by the Supreme Court.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The 5-4 decision, in which Roberts voted with the court's so-called "liberal wing," found that the Trump administration did not take the proper steps to end DACA while rejecting arguments that the program is illegal and that courts have no role to play in reviewing the decision to end it.
In his dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas criticized his colleagues for what he called "an effort to avoid a politically controversial but legally correct decision" and contended that DACA was illegal from the moment it was created under the Obama administration in 2012.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"The Court could have made clear that the solution respondents seek must come from the Legislative Branch," Thomas wrote. "Instead, the majority has decided to prolong [the Department of Homeland Security's initial overreach by providing a stopgap measure of its own."
In the majority opinion, Roberts wrote that the ruling "[does] do not decide whether DACA or its rescission are sound policies." While the Department of Homeland Security can try again to end the DACA program, any new order -- and the inevitable legal challenges -- will likely take months or even years to be dispensed with.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Thiessen said that the larger issue is that there are all sorts of cases where Chief Justice John Roberts “avoided controversial outcomes.”
“We need justices who have the courage to have their convictions and this is not what we’re getting from John Roberts,” he said.