The Legal Aid Society filed an amicus brief alongside leading public interest organizations in support of the State of New York’s lawsuit challenging the first Trump administration’s recission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act and as in violation of equal protection principles. Our brief described the role of public interest legal organizations in supporting DACA recipients and the irreparable harm caused to them by the program’s recission.

In February 2018, the Eastern District of New York issued a nationwide injunction requiring the federal government to continue accepting DACA renewal applications while the case proceeded in response to the State’s suit. In June 2020, ruling on a similar challenge, the U.S. Supreme Court held that DACA’S recission was unlawful because the Department of Homeland Security had arbitrarily and capriciously neglected to address DACA recipients’ and their community’s reliance interests in the program. Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, 591 U.S. 9, 35-36 (2020).