A federal judge on Tuesday blocked a US administration's decision to suspend a program that gives legal status to young immigrants who entered the country illegally when they were children, while Trump and congressional deputies discussed a more comprehensive immigration scheme that could grant citizenship to millions of migrants.
The verdict came hours after US President Donald Trump headed a high-level meeting in the White House that included bipartisan and democratic bidders to discuss the file, known as the Dreamers.
San Francisco federal judge William Alcop issued his ruling on Tuesday night, ordering Donald Trump's administration to reinstate the countrywide "Dhaka" program under the same conditions as before it was suspended on Sept. 5, 2017.
The 49-page judgment said the government was "obliged to wait for a final ruling to keep the DHA + program nationwide at the same conditions as it was in place before it was suspended."
The Justice Department's position that the program was illegal was based on a "wrong legal premise," the judge said.
Unless the judgment is overturned by a higher judicial body, former beneficiaries of the program are again entitled to apply for renewal of their stay.
The program, approved by the administration of former President Barack Obama in 2012, protects these young people from deportation but Trump announced in September that it would be repealed but delayed implementation of the resolution to give Congress a six-month deadline until March to prepare a lasting solution.
- "sympathetic law" -
The government was sued on the grounds that the termination of the program was arbitrary and without due process of law.
Judge Alesop said on Tuesday he doubted the government's claim that the "Dhaka" program was illegal.
On Tuesday, Trump chaired a White House meeting to persuade Republicans and Democrats to compromise on the fate of the "dreamers".
He also said he was open to an integrated immigration reform to address the fate of millions of unregistered immigrants living in the shadows as long as Democrats wanted to support a broader security program for the border, including the controversial border wall with Mexico.
"It should be a sympathetic bill," Trump said, referring to a procedure under study and negotiation that would protect hundreds of thousands of dreamers from deportation.
"But it must be a bill that will enable us to secure the borders, drugs are flowing to our country at a record rate," he said, calling on MPs to "put the country ahead of the party" and reach a quick solution.
- "I will bear the consequences" -
Trump presided over a single meeting of about 25 deputies from the Senate and House of Representatives, bypassing partisan differences between Republicans and Democrats, and allowed reporters to attend a rare meeting for about an hour.
Trump said he would "bear the consequences" politically if MPs agreed on a more comprehensive move that could provide a means of granting citizenship to the 11 million unregistered refugees living in the United States.
"You are not far from a comprehensive immigration reform," Trump told Sen. Lindsay Graham. "You have created the opportunity, Mr. President, and you have to complete the agreement."
Trump's current position seems to be in stark contrast to his campaign positions in 2016, when he focused heavily on border security and immigration restriction, angering many of his supporters who oppose the possibility of legal status for millions of unregistered migrants.
