WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump denounced the federal courts as "broken and unfair" after a district judge in San Francisco issued a nationwide injunction keeping protections in place for so-called "Dreamers."
"It just shows everyone how broken and unfair our Court System is when the opposing side in a case (such as DACA) always runs to the 9th Circuit and almost always wins before being reversed by higher courts," Trump wrote in a tweet Wednesday.
On Tuesday night, U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco temporarily blocked the Trump administration's decision to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, which has protected from deportation some 700,000 people who came to the country illegally as children.
Judge Alsup granted a request by the state of California, the University of California and other plaintiffs to stop Trump from ending DACA on March 5.
The administration's decision to end DACA, which was announced in September, was based on a "flawed" legal analysis, Alsup wrote in his decision. Dreamers would be irreparably harmed if their DACA protections, which allow them to live and work legally in the U.S., were stripped away before the courts had a chance to fully consider their claims, he ruled.
The action is the mirror image of a ruling in 2015 by a federal judge in Texas who ruled in favor of that state when it sought to block President Barack Obama from expanding DACA to include the parents of Dreamers. Trump administration officials praised that judicial ruling. By contrast, they sharply criticized Alsup's decision.
The judge's decision is "outrageous," White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.
"We find this decision to be outrageous, especially in light of the President's successful bipartisan meeting with House and Senate members at the White House on the same day," Sanders said.
Trump promised during his campaign to end the DACA program, and has repeatedly said the Obama-era program is unconstitutional and an abuse of executive power.
He has also said he does not want the Dreamers to be harmed and has asked Congress to pass legislation to protect them. But he's sent mixed signals to Capitol Hill on what sort of legislation he would back, which has contributed to a legislative deadlock on the issue.
"An issue of this magnitude must go through the normal legislative process," Sanders said. "President Trump is committed to the rule of law, and will work with members of both parties to reach a permanent solution that corrects the unconstitutional actions taken by the last administration."
