The Supreme Court on Monday declined an unusual White House request that it immediately decide whether the Trump administration can shut down a program that shields some 700,000 young immigrants from deportation.
The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the administration’s appeal was expected, as no appeals court has yet ruled on the issue. The court’s order was brief, gave no reasons and noted no dissents.
It said it expected the appeals court to “proceed expeditiously to decide this case.”
President Donald Trump ended the program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, in September, calling it an unconstitutional use of executive power by his predecessor and reviving the threat of deportation for immigrants who had been brought to the United States illegally as children.
But two federal judges have ordered the administration to maintain major pieces of the program while legal challenges move forward, notably by requiring the administration to allow people enrolled in it to renew their protected status.
The Supreme Court's move will, as a practical matter, temporarily shield the young immigrants who already had signed up for the DACA program from immediate deportation, and allow them to keep working legally in the United States. Their status lasts for two years and is renewable.
The court’s decision not to hear the appeal could also relieve the immediate political pressure on lawmakers to permanently address the status of those immigrants, or to deal with the additional 1 million young immigrants who had never signed up for the DACA program. They remain at risk of deportation if immigration agents find them.
Even as he ended the DACA program, Trump had called upon Congress to give the young immigrants legal status, and an eventual path to citizenship, before the program was scheduled to expire March 5. But that proposal has been bogged down in partisan gridlock as members.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.