All the Republican-appointed justices backed the stay, while all the high court’s Democratic appointees joined a 10-page dissent authored by Justice Stephen Breyer. | Getty Images Supreme Court lifts orders to disclose DACA cancellation records The justices split, 5-4, in dispute over Trump's decision to end protections for 'Dreamers.'

A sharply divided Supreme Court on Friday lifted orders the Trump administration was facing to turn over more records detailing the decision to terminate the Obama-era program that offers quasi-legal status and work permits to so-called Dreamers.

The justices voted, 5-4, to grant a temporary stay of orders that a San Francisco federal judge issued requiring federal officials to provide internal legal analyses, studies and other materials the administration gathered in advance of the decision announced in September to wind down the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.


The Trump administration complained that the orders from U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup issued in connection with five pending lawsuits over the cancellation would require officials to review more than 1.6 million documents, diverting the resources of the Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department. Federal government lawyers also complained that the disclosures intruded on executive branch officials’ ability to obtain confidential advice.

All the Republican-appointed justices backed the stay, while all the high court’s Democratic appointees joined a 10-page dissent authored by Justice Stephen Breyer.

“The Government’s arguments do not come close to carrying the heavy burden that the Government bears in seeking such extraordinary relief,” Breyer wrote.

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Breyer said the burdens posed by the orders were not wildly inappropriate given the importance of DACA, which he said offered protection to 800,000 people. (Other figures put current enrollment at about 690,000.) The justice also rejected the administration’s claims that it alone should decide what records are relevant to the decision, which President Donald Trump has said was his but was officially made by the acting Homeland Security secretary, Elaine Duke.

“Judicial review cannot function if the agency is permitted to decide unilaterally what documents it submits to the reviewing court as the administrative record,” Breyer added in the dissent. “Effective review depends upon the administrative record containing all relevant materials presented to the agency, including not only materials supportive of the government’s decision but also materials contrary to the government’s decision.”

As is customary in emergency stay rulings, the justices in the Supreme Court’s majority did not explain their rationale.

A Justice Department spokesman welcomed the court’s action.

“The Department of Justice is pleased with the Supreme Court’s decision today putting on hold the district court’s overreach,” department spokesman Devin O’Malley said. “The Department of Homeland Security acted within its lawful authority in deciding to wind down DACA in an orderly manner, and the Justice Department believes the courts will ultimately agree.”

The ruling is a temporary one pending further action on the case by the high court.

The suits challenging the cancellation of DACA are expected to move forward in district courts in California and New York as the high court continues to wrestle with the document issue.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who is pressing one of the suits, expressed puzzlement at the federal government's resistance to the effort to probe the basis for its DACA decision.

"What is the Trump Administration trying so hard to hide?" Becerra asked. “The Administration owes the American people a real explanation for its decision to upend the lives of 800,000 Dreamers, stripping them of their ability to work and study, stirring fear, and threatening our economy. We’ll keep fighting in court for Dreamers, particularly the one in four DACA grantees who call California home.”

