Appeals court takes early look at lawsuits in DACA cases

NEW YORK (AP) - A federal appeals court in New York agreed Friday to take an early look at some legal issues surrounding President Donald Trump's decision to end a program protecting some young immigrants from deportation.

Two lawsuits filed in Brooklyn have sought to block the Republican president from ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which has protected about 800,000 people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or came with families who overstayed visas. It currently includes hundreds of thousands of college-age students.

Those cases, one of which includes at least 15 states and the District of Colombia as plaintiffs, still are at early stages, with lawyers arguing over what records the government must turn over to the plaintiffs.

Judge Jose A. Cabranes of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan on Friday temporarily suspended lower court rulings related to record production.

A three-judge panel of the appeals court will now get involved in determining how much information the Trump administration has to turn over about how it decided to end the DACA program.

Cabranes gave the government until Monday afternoon to submit legal arguments.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said the decision of former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, to implement DACA was an unconstitutional exercise of his authority.

Janet Napolitano, who was Homeland Security secretary in the Obama administration and helped implement the program, is among plaintiffs in another federal lawsuit in San Francisco challenging the government's action.