Duke, 18 Other Schools File Brief in Support of DACA

Duke and 18 other colleges and universities filed an amicus (friend of the court) brief in the Supreme Court Oct. 4 to halt a Trump administration proposal to repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

DACA is an immigration policy launched in 2012 by the Obama administration calling for deferred action for certain undocumented young people who came to the U.S. as children. It protects covered students against near-term deportation, allowing them to work lawfully and travel abroad.

The Oct. 4 brief was filed in support of the respondents in the case, which include the Regents of the University of California and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, among others. In 2017, the Trump administration announced its plan to phase out the DACA program, but several U.S. courts have halted the action.

Other schools joining the amicus brief are Brown University, the California Institute of Technology, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Emory University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, Northwestern University, Stanford University, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University, Washington University in St. Louis and Yale University.

Duke has previously filed two briefs in support of continuing the DACA program.