The US Supreme Court [official website] on Tuesday granted [order, PDF] the Department of Justice‘s (DOJ) [official website] motion to expedite consideration of a petition for direct review of a trial court injunction blocking the termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) [USCIS backgrounder] program.

Earlier this month, the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] ordered [JURIST report] a temporary injunction blocking the Trump administration from ending the DACA program. Terming the government’s decision to end DACA “arbitrary and capricious” and based on a flawed legal premise, Judge William Alsup ordered that the program must continue to renew applications from those previously covered until lawsuits regarding those affected are resolved, even though new applications for Dreamer status did not have to be processed.

Last week, the DOJ announced [JURIST report] its plans to seek direct review by the Supreme Court, contrary to the standard procedure that would have involved an appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website].

The DOJ followed this announcement up with a formal petition [JURIST report] for direct review by the Supreme Court two days later. This type of a petition to bypass an appellate court for direct review by the Supreme Court is quite rare, although the Supreme Court has entertained such requests positively in the past.

An expedited hearing will take place to decide whether the Supreme Court will directly take up review of the trial court order, and the state attorneys general and their co-litigants are required to submit briefs in opposition to the direct review by February 2.

The Trump administration’s decision to end DACA is estimated to affect more than 700,000 individuals [CNN report].