Supremes ready to side with Trump on DACA

Yet another of Barack Obama's executive orders could bite the dust as the Supreme Court appeared inclined in oral arguments Tuesday to uphold President Trump's executive order to shut down DACA.

The federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program has allowed nearly 800,000 young people who came to the U.S. with their illegal-alien parents to remain in the U.S.

President Trump already has reversed many of Obama's executive orders, from foreign policy issues to LGBT activism in public schools.

Obama repeatedly acknowledged that only Congress had the authority to allow the illegal-alien young people to avoid deportation. But when Congress did not act as he wished, he established the policy by executive order.

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President Trump, upon taking office, canceled the policy by an executive order of his own and was sued. Federal judges have blocked Trump's order, and the case is now before the Supreme Court.

The New York Times reported Tuesday the court's "conservative majority" appeared ready "to side with the Trump administration."

"The court's liberal justices probed the administration’s justifications for ending the program, expressing skepticism about its rationales for doing so. But other justices indicated that they would not second-guess the administration's reasoning and, in any event, considered its explanations sufficient," the report said.

Obama's unilateral decision in 2012 allowed young people brought to the United States as children to apply for a temporary, two-year status shielding them from deportation and allowing them to work.

The status is renewable but does not provide a path to citizenship.

Trump says that if the court upholds his order, he wants to negotiate a legislative solution with Democrats. One key issue is that Congress has refused to fund the president's plan to strengthen physical barriers to prevent illegal aliens from crossing into the U.S. from Mexico.

Trump originally said the reason for shutting down the program was that the order was beyond the legal authority of any president.

The Washington Post reported government lawyers pointed out that even Obama called the program temporary.

The Post said the Supreme Court's "somewhat reluctant review of the DACA program — it waited for months before accepting the case — meant that, for the third consecutive year, the high court will pass judgment on a Trump priority that has been stifled by federal judges, this time in a presidential election year and in a case with passionate advocates and huge consequences."

The The Hill reported the "politically charged case sparked a day of drama in Washington, with immigration rights advocates gathering on the steps of the court, where they urged the justices to save the program."