Judge temporarily blocks Trump on DACA

NEW YORK (FOX5NY) - For the second time in two months, a federal judge has barred President Donald Trump's administration from ending the Obama-era DACA program for now. The program, which protects undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. when they were minors, was set to expire March 5, 2018.

In a written order imposing a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis said that the president "indisputably" has the right to kill DACA but used flawed legal reasons.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is among more than a dozen state attorneys general who sued the federal government.

"We are pleased the Court ordered the Department of Homeland Security to restore DACA under the same conditions set forth by a federal court in California," Schneiderman said in a statement. "We are also pleased that the Court made clear that United States Attorney General Sessions was wrong when he claimed DACA was illegal and that the DOJ was wrong to claim that any court has deemed DACA unconstitutional."

In the meantime, the president continued his prodding to lawmakers in Congress to hammer out a deal on immigration that would include a resolution to the DACA question.  

"We're asking Congress to support our immigration policy that keeps terrorists, drug dealers, criminals and gang members out of our country—we want them out; we don't want them in," Trump told a group of sheriffs visiting the White House. "And right now we're working on DACA, we're working on immigration bills and we're making them tough so you people can enforce the laws."

Trump said he wants Congress to secure the border wall, end so-called chain migration, and cancel the visa lottery.

"Anybody in favor of the lottery? Where you pick it out and you say, 'Good, we have a new United States citizen,'?" Trump said. "It doesn't work. And they're not giving us their finest, that we can tell you."

But Democratic leaders said the GOP needs to cooperate and offer more concessions.

"I think the sooner the better," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York., said. "If we can come up with a bipartisan compromise that looks like it's right in the ballpark of 60 [votes], let it rip—let's go."