A US appeals court in California has ruled that President Donald Trump's administration must continue DACA, a program that protects hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

Iran PressAmerica: A US federal appeals court has ruled on Thursday that President Donald Trump cannot end DACA, an Obama administration program that protects undocumented immigrants brought to the USA as children.

According to CNBC news channel, the ruling represented another legal defeat for Trump over DACA.

DACA offers protections to roughly 700,000 young adults, mostly Hispanics, who entered the country as children.

A panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit agreed with a federal district judge's decision in January that Trump lacked the authority to eliminate the program – a proposal the president made last year in hopes of prodding Congress to act.

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"Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claim that the rescission of DACA – at least as justified on this record – is arbitrary, capricious or otherwise not in accordance with law," the three-member panel said.

The panel said, DACA lets it "devote much-needed resources to enforcement priorities such as threats to national security, rather than blameless and economically productive young people with clean criminal records."

According to The Guardian, Trump has proposed immigration changes during his first State of the Union speech on January 30, 2018.

The decision leaves in place for now the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, which has protected more than 700,000 undocumented immigrants from deportation and enabled them to get work permits.

The court noted it was created because of the "cruelty and wastefulness of deporting productive young people to countries with which they have no ties."

The Justice Department is likely to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, which has five reliably conservative justices. In February, the high court refused to leapfrog the appeals court's review of Judge William Alsup's decision.

“In California and across our nation, Dreamers significantly enrich our communities as scholars, entrepreneurs, first responders and much more," California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said. "This fight, of course, is far from over. We will continue to defend Dreamers and DACA all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.”

Dan Stein, president of the conservative Federation for American Immigration Reform, decried the ruling. "The Supreme Court must move this case to the top of their docket,” he said.

Two other federal appeals courts are reviewing the dispute between the Trump administration and the states, local governments and immigrant rights groups fighting to maintain the program.

In its ruling, the 9th Circuit pointed out that the two policies provide very different forms of relief. DACA grants protection from deportation; the DREAM Act would confer legal permanent residency, which leads toward US citizenship.

To reach its conclusion, the 9th Circuit decision explored more than 100 years of presidential administrations deciding that not every law must be enforced 100 percent of the time and that not all people should be punished for every violation. 210/103

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