DHS to Accept New DACA 'Dreamer' Applications Under Trump Administration

by Kaylee Greenlee

The Department of Homeland Security will begin accepting first-time Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival applications starting Monday, officials announced.

U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas George Garaufis issued an opinion requiring U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy that was in effect before September 2017, according to the Department of Homeland Security. President Donald Trump ended the DACA program in September 2017, claiming that the program was unconstitutional, the Associated Press reported.

“DHS will comply with Judge Garaufis’ order while it remains in effect, but DHS may seek relief from the order,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement.

The Trump administration has fully restored DACA and is allowing new applications for the first time since 2017 — after a judge ordered it to.

DACA protects about 650,000 young immigrants from deportation. The Supreme Court says how Trump ended it violated federal law. pic.twitter.com/wNppGtlB5p

— AJ+ (@ajplus) December 8, 2020

Trump’s decision to end DACA violated federal law, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June, the AP reported.

In compliance with Garaufis’s opinion, USCIS will accept first-time applications for consideration of deferred action under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) policy prior to September 2017, according to the DHS. Applications for advance parole documents will also be accepted under the same terms by the new order.

Acting DHS Security Secretary Chad Wolf issued a memorandum on June 15 that the administration would not accept new applications and would shorten renewal periods while they studied their options, the AP reported. Garaufis set the Monday deadline for the administration to announce that new applications would be accepted under the DACA terms set prior to Trump’s executive order.

“USCIS will take appropriate steps to provide evidence of the one-year extensions of deferred action and employment authorization documents under DACA to individuals who were issued documentation on or after July 28, 2020, with a one-year validity period under the Wolf Memorandum,” the DHS said in a statement.

One-year grants of deferred action and employment authorization under DACA will be extended to two years each, according to the DHS. The policy allows around 650,000 people to live and work in the U.S. without being deported, the AP reported.

President-elect Joe Biden has said he will reinstate the Obama administration policy from 2012 in January, the AP reported. DACA does not grant legal status to illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children but allows them to live and work without facing deportation.

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Kaylee Greenlee is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Defend Dreamers” by Rhododendrites. CC BY-SA 4.0.

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