Duke Joins Universities in Supporting Princeton's Legal Challenge to DACA Program Rescission

Duke has joined 17 other leading higher education institutions in an amicus brief supporting Princeton University and other defendants challenging the Trump Administration’s rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (“DACA”) program.

Filed this past Friday, the brief presents evidence of the value of the students enrolled at the universities under the DACA program, and the harm they and the country as a whole would face from the ending of the program.  The brief was filed in the case of Princeton, Microsoft Corp. and Maria De la Cruz Perales Sanchez against the US Department of Homeland Security and department secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

The case will be heard in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, and is one of a series of cases where universities have made legal challenges to Trump administration immigration policies.

Duke and the other universities state that enrolling talented DACA students are at the core of their educational, research and service missions. It quotes from the leaders of Harvard, Cornell, Caltech and other universities about the harm that will come to the institutions and the nation if these students’ educational aspirations are ended by the policy.

“[L]ike their peers,” the DACA students on amici’s campuses “are extraordinarily talented young people who . . . aspire to be leaders in public service, science, business, medicine, and the arts. They embody the drive and determination that has made the United States the most prosperous and innovative country in the world.”

The full text of the brief can be found here.