Immigration Services to Resume Accepting DACA Renewal Requests

By David Boddiger | January 14, 2018 | 5:27pm

Immigration

Following a federal judge’s ruling this week that temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the government has announced it will resume accepting renewal requests from DACA recipients.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the Department of Homeland Security, on Saturday stated that, “Until further notice, and unless otherwise provided in this guidance, the DACA policy will be operated on the terms in place before it was rescinded on Sept. 5, 2017.”

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Recipients whose DACA expired on or after Sept. 5, 2016 can file a renewal request, the agency said. Those whose DACA expired before that date cannot, it added.

The announcement follows a preliminary injunction issued last Tuesday by U.S. District Judge William Alsup stating that DACA recipients must be protected against deportation while a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s order is pending.

Last September, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the administration would rescind DACA, placing in jeopardy the legal status of some 690,000 DACA recipients who came to the U.S. as children. Calling it “the compassionate thing to do,” Sessions said Congress would have six months to amend the program before it officially expired. He added that no renewal applications would be accepted after Oct. 5, 2017.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, the University of California, and the attorneys general of Maine, Maryland, and Minnesota, along with several DACA recipients, sued to block the Trump administration order, claiming it had failed to follow the law and would cause irreparable harm by leading to the deportation of DACA recipients, The Washington Post reported.

In his ruling, Judge Alsup agreed with the plaintiffs, citing “serious irreparable harm absent an injunction.” He did not rule on the merits of the case, according to the Post.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the ruling “outrageous.” Trump responded by attacking the judicial branch, stating on Twitter that, “It just shows everyone how broken and unfair our Court System is when the opposing side in a case (such as DACA) always runs to the 9th Circuit and almost always wins before being reversed by higher courts.”

While Citizenship and Immigration Services was moving forward with following the judge’s injunction on renewals, Trump spent the weekend at his FL golf course attacking Democrats via Twitter over the ongoing DACA negotiations. Since Saturday, Trump has tweeted four times about DACA, immigration, and the Democrats, as of this writing.

“The Democrats are all talk and no action. They are doing nothing to fix DACA. Great opportunity missed. Too bad!” Trump tweeted.

“I don’t believe the Democrats really want to see a deal on DACA. They are all talk and no action. This is the time but, day by day, they are blowing the one great opportunity they have. Too bad!” he repeated.

Then, he accused Democrats of trying to use DACA negotiations to defund the military:

On Sunday, as the backlash over Trump’s racist “shithole” comments continued unabated, the president repeated his “America First” mantra.

Links to government forms for DACA renewal requests can be found here.