Judge: Ending program to protect immigrants creates hardship

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge grilled an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday over the Trump administration's justification for ending a program protecting some young immigrants from deportation, saying many people had come to rely on it.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup said many of those protected by former President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy faced a "real" and "palpable" hardship from its loss. It gave people the chance to work and made them "contributing, taxpaying members of the economy," he said.

"Isn't that a huge thing to have so many people being a legitimate part of the economy?" the judge said at a court hearing in San Francisco.