Federal court restores DACA and orders DHS to accept new applicants immediately despite Trump’s three-year bid to end the Obama-era immigration program
- The Department of Homeland Security must resume DACA applications Monday
- Judge Nicholas Garaufis, in Brooklyn, ordered the resumption on Friday night
- He found that the Trump administration had unlawfully blocked DACA
- His ruling can now be appealed to a federal appeals court or the Supreme Court
Donald Trump’s three year battle to overturn the rules regarding undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children was dealt a blow on Friday night, after a judge in Brooklyn fully restored the Obama-era program.
DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, has been a bone of contention for Trump throughout his presidency, and in September 2017 he officially began the process of ending it.
Under the scheme young people brought to the U.S. by their parents when they were under 16, and who were under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012, were exempt from deportation.
They must have been brought to the U.S. before June 2007, and be able to prove they have continuously lived in the country since then.
Two young girls at a shelter in Nogales, Arizona, in June 2014. DACA applied until June 2012
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students in front of the Supreme Court in June
The exemption was granted as long as the young person had no criminal conviction; could prove they were in school, had graduated or obtained a certificate of completion from high school; had obtained a general education development (GED) certificate, or were an honorably discharged veteran of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces of the United States.
On Friday evening U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis fully restored the Obama-era program.
The judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security to begin accepting first-time applications on Monday.
The administration can now appeal to a federal appeals court or go to the Supreme Court for temporary relief from enforcement of the judge’s order.
Donald Trump, pictured on Thursday in the Oval Office, has been trying to block DACA
On June 18, the Supreme Court sided with DACA recipients ruling that the way in which the Trump administration rescinded the DACA program in 2017 was unlawful.
However, the Trump administration ignored it.
In late July, a memo by Chad Wolf, the Homeland Security Secretary, ordered DHS to reject all new initial DACA applications, to change the renewal period for current beneficiaries from two years to one year, and to reject all advance parole applications absent exceptional circumstances.
The Wolf memo also purported to apply these changes retroactively to all applications submitted after the June 18 — the date of the Supreme Court decision.
On November 14 Judge Garaufis ruled that Wolf had not been lawfully appointed as acting Homeland Security Secretary, and therefore his July 28 memo was invalid.
Friday’s ruling is the final step in his decision.