WASHINGTON, D.C. (Nexstar) — On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case challenging President Donald Trump’s controversial 2017 decision to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
The program grants qualified immigrants temporary residency and work privileges.
Lawmakers have debated this issue on Capitol Hill for years, and now they are looking to the Supreme Court to decide the fate of more than 700,000 young immigrants.
Hundreds of people marched from the Capitol to the steps of the Supreme Court on Tuesday — many of them are DACA recipients.
Alexa Toledo, a junior at Maryville College in Tennesee, is one such recipient.
“We are students, we are workers, we are humans, we are Americans and everything but a piece of paper,” says Toledo.
Toledo says she is only able to study in the U.S. because of DACA, which has granted temporary residency and work privileges to more than 700,000 undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children.
But now Toledo says her future is up to the high court — which is deciding if the Trump Administration has the power to end DACA, which was created by President Barack Obama in 2012.
But Trump says DACA is illegal.
The President tweeted Tuesday morning that if the court rules his way, he’s willing to strike a deal with Congress to protect DACA recipients.
But it would require Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill to work together with the president to come up with a solution — which some say is unlikely.
