I read the decision fully over lunch. I take back everything I said. I was 100% wrong. As wrong as I could be. Here's the money quote:
"The APA’s “basic presumption of judicial review” of agency action, Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 140, can be rebutted by showing that the “agency action is committed to agency discretion by law,” 5 U. S. C. §701(a)(2). In Heckler v. Chaney, the Court held that this narrow exception includes an agency’s decision not to institute an enforcement action. 470 U. S. 821, 831–832. The Government contends that DACA is a general non-enforcement policy equivalent tothe individual non-enforcement decision in Chaney. But the DACA Memorandum did not merely decline to institute enforcement proceedings; it created a program for conferring affirmative immigration relief. Therefore, unlike the non-enforcement decision in Chaney, DACA’s creation—and its rescission—is an “action [that] provides a focus for judicial review.” Id., at 832."
I don't know if this is difficult for non-attorneys to read (I have a hard time telling) but if it is, here's what it means.
The Administrative Procedures Act makes executive agency actions generally reviewable by the courts. One exception is an agency deciding to not bring an enforcement action (in this case the decision to not bring a deportation action). That is considered purely discretionary. DACA was created on the premise that deferring deportation actions was simply the discretionary act to not bring an enforcement action. If this was true then its rescission would be discretionary and not reviewable.
HOWEVER, the SCOTUS determined that DACA wasn't a decision to not bring an enforcement action, it was a policy of non-enforcement and so it is reviewable. Since the creation of the policy is not discretionary and is reviewable, the rescission is not discretionary and is reviewable.
The court was only presented with the question of whether the rescission was valid and so could not rule on whether DACA was valid as a whole.
But what this does that actually has be ecstatic now that I've read the case and understand it, is roll back the idea that a President can undermine a valid statute using his discretionary power to decide not to enforce. This case does the exact opposite of what I initially thought. It's the best case I've seen in a while and it should have been 9-0.
However, while DACA won today, this might actually set up its ultimate destruction. The SCOTUS has now specifically ruled the creation of DACA to be reviewable. That's going to bring it back to the SCOTUS at some point and I they could determine that a policy of non-enforcement usurps the power of Congress.
