Apple CEO Tim Cook praised the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program after the court voted 5-4 to block the Trump administration from ending the policy.
In a tweet, Cook wrote that the hundreds of Apple employees who enjoy legal protections under the program were eager to see the DACA provisions enshrined into federal law.
“The 478 Dreamers at Apple are members of our collective family. With creativity and passion, they’ve made us a stronger, more innovative American company. We’re glad for today’s decision and will keep fighting until DACA’s protections are permanent,” he wrote.
Cook is a vocal supporter of the policy and previously wrote a brief opposing the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the program, which was submitted to the Supreme Court.
“I am focused on DACA. We have 450 folks in Apple, employed at Apple, who are employed on DACA. I want those folks protected. Not just the 450 but the broader DACA people in America,” he said during an interview with ABC News last year.
“I will fight until my toes point up on the subject because I think that it is so core to who we are as a people that we not turn our back on people that came into the country as kids, they were brought here well before they could make a decision on their own,” he continued. “These people are the core of what an American is.”
The DACA protections, signed as an executive order by former President Obama in 2012, allow immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children to gain legal protections and work permits in the U.S. The Trump administration moved in 2017 to begin dismantling the program, a process that has been engulfed in legal challenges ever since.
The 5-4 ruling on Thursday largely fell along ideological lines, with Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the court’s liberal bloc. The ruling keeps the DACA program intact but does not prevent the Trump administration from seeking to rescind it in the future.