A victory for DREAMers

The Supreme Court saves DACA for now; a Trump appointee goes on a firing spree at the US Agency for Global Media.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Cameron Peters.

A programming note: Sentences is off Friday with the Juneteenth holiday and will resume on Monday.

TOP NEWS

DACA endures at the Supreme Court

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Trump administration cannot immediately end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as DACA. [NPR / Nina Totenberg]
The Court, in a majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, concluded that Trump's decision to rescind the program was "arbitrary and capricious" because it failed to consider the interests of the nearly 700,000 people protected by DACA. [The Daily Beast / Jay Michaelson]
The Trump administration has previously indicated that it would deport DACA recipients — known as DREAMers — were it allowed to end the program. Thursday's ruling means that those people, many of whom have never known a home other than the US, will be able to remain in the country. [Vox / Nicole Narea]
Roberts joined the liberal wing of the Court in Thursday's decision, while four other conservative justices dissented. Justice Sonia Sotomayor also issued a concurring opinion highlighting Trump's "impermissible discriminatory animus" toward immigrants. [Twitter / Kristen Clarke]
Ending DACA was a major campaign promise for Trump in 2016, and his administration first attempted to do so in September 2017. However, the move was repeatedly blocked by lower courts, which kept the program alive. [NYT / Adam Liptak and Michael D. Shear]
As Vox's Ian Millhiser points out, however, Thursday's ruling in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California doesn't mean that Trump can't try ending DACA a second time — it simply finds that the administration failed to justify the decision the first time around. [Vox / Ian Millhiser]
Still, the program is likely safe for now — it's unlikely that the Trump administration will be able to marshall a new effort to rescind DACA prior to the general election in November. [Politico / Josh Gerstein and Rebecca Rainey]
The ruling is the second major defeat for the Trump administration to be handed down this week. On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that the employment protections under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also extend to LGBTQ+ individuals. [CNN / Ariane de Vogue and Devan Cole]

An attack on editorial independence

On Wednesday night, Michael Pack, the new director of the US Agency for Global Media, fired the heads of four different government-funded news organizations, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. [NYT / Edward Wong]
The advisory boards for all four organizations were also dissolved by Pack, who was recently confirmed for the top job at the agency. No justification for the move was given. [NPR / David Folkenflik]
The firings come after two top officials at Voice of America, another USAGM news agency, resigned on Monday following Pack's confirmation. In April this year, the Trump White House attacked VOA for its reporting on the coronavirus pandemic, accusing it of spreading Chinese propaganda. [WSJ / William Mauldin]
VOA was also blacklisted from interviewing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials following the White House's unsubstantiated accusation. [VOA / Brian Padden]
As CNN's Jennifer Hansler and Brian Stelter point out, the spate of firings and resignations has amplified worries that the Trump administration "wants to turn VOA into a right-wing propaganda machine." [CNN / Jennifer Hansler and Brian Stelter]
VOA, which was created in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda during World War II, has historically maintained significant editorial independence despite being government-funded. However, Pack, an ally of former Breitbart executive Steve Bannon, could change that. [Slate / Elliot Hannon]

MISCELLANEOUS

Juneteenth, which celebrates the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States, is this Friday. Vox took a look at the holiday's 155-year history.

[Vox / Fabiola Cineas]

Facebook took down ads by the Trump campaign for violating the site's policy "against organized hate." The ads used a symbol that was also used to identify political prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. [CNN / Donie O'Sullivan]
Anti-Chinese sentiment is on the rise in India as anger grows over the death of 20 Indian soldiers earlier this week. [NYT / Jeffrey Gettleman]
FiveThirtyEight's general election polling averages are back, and Joe Biden leads Donald Trump by almost 9 points. [FiveThirtyEight]

VERBATIM

"We took our power to the streets, the hallways of Congress, to the highest court in the land and we won. For almost three years we have been living with immense uncertainty, and today we are able to breathe a sigh of relief."

[Activist Martín Batalla Vidal on what Thursday's ruling means to DACA recipients / NPR]