US Immigration Officials started accepting Applications to Restore DACA Program

Listen to this article

The administration of US President Donald Trump reinstated a program created by President Obama and complying with a recent court order. The program was aimed to shield undocumented immigrants who came to the US as minors from deportation. US Immigration officials have announced it would accept initial applications for the first time in the last 3 years. The US Department of Homeland Security said it would administer the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program under the guidelines crafted by the Obama administration in 2012. DHS would start granting work permits and deportation deferrals to approved applicants. The permit will be issued for two years and allow DACA-holders to request permission to travel abroad under certain circumstances.

The restoration of Obama’s signature immigration policy is a major victory for more than 640,000 current DACA recipients. It was mandated by a federal judge in Brooklyn on Friday. However, there are more than 300,000 undocumented immigrant teenagers and young adults who could be eligible to apply for the program. DACA supposedly a survival during President Trump’s tenure represents yet another setback in his administration’s effort to dismantle Obama’s domestic policy achievements. A DACA recipient and plaintiff in one of the lawsuits challenging its termination, Antonio Alarcon said he is surprised the program has been revived during the final days of Trump’s presidency. He said, “I was skeptical but I knew the power of our community. We kept fighting. We took to the streets. We went to the courts”.

The former attorney general Jeff Sessions announced in September 2017 that the Trump administration would wind down DACA. It was criticized as an unconstitutional abuse of executive authority that encouraged unauthorized immigration. But DACA outlived Sessions and withstood a years-long legal battle that ultimately reached the US Supreme Court. The Court ruled in June that the Trump administration didn’t follow federal administrative law when it moved to terminate the program. A lawyer connected to one of the legal battles, Karen Tumlin said, “I don’t think there’s any immigration attorney in the country who would tell you they thought DACA would be fully in its 2012 shape in December 2020 of the Trump administration. It is absolutely remarkable but I think it’s a testament to the ferocity of immigrant young people who have allies in the courtroom and allies across the country”.