President Donald Trump is delaying his commitment to re-cancel the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, a senior administration official told reporters Tuesday.
“The administration is now undertaking a comprehensive review of the program,” the official said.
Pending completion of the review, the administration will not approve new entrants, but will provide one-year renewals of work permits first provided by President Barack Obama to roughly 800,000 illegal immigrants, the official said.
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was created by Obama to provide work permits and exemptions from deportation during the post-2008 recession.
The Supreme Court, however, blocked the administration’s 2017 cancellation of the DACA program, saying officials had not provided an adequate explanation of the cancellation.
“The administration is disappointed about the Court’s decision and continues to doubts the program’s legality,” the official said, adding that the program is also being challenged in several districts.
The administration will sharply limit requests by DACA recipients for “Advanced Parole,” the official said. Since 2012, the Advanced Parole rule was used by tens of thousands of DACA beneficiaries to help them win green cards.
The administration official said:
When the administration next acts on DACA, it will be on the basis of the comprehensive review of the substantive legal and legal policy justification offered for winding down the program.
Obviously, to do this correctly and thoughtfully, the review will have to take time.
We won’t weigh in on how long that will take because it’s a question of a careful review of all the [2017 and 2018] documentation that was provided to the Deputy Secretary [Elaine] Duke, Attorney General [Jeff] Sessions, Secretary [Kirstjen] Nielson, in the formation of their memos.
In the meantime, the administration will take the following action on the existing DACA program: All initial requests and application fees submitted for new filings will be rejected without prejudice [for reactivation] should the policy be retained the DACA policy be retained following administration’s review.
We will adjudicate all applications for renewal on a case-by-case basis consistent with immigration statute, providing one-year, rather than the exiting two-year renewals. And consistent with this policy and the reasoning behind the original [Janet] Napolitano departmental memo, all applications for Advance Parole will be rejected, absent extraordinary circumstances.
[The] forthcoming memo issued today from the Department of Homeland Security will lay out the background and the pending action in greater detail.
I’ll just say here in conclusion: These actions will limit the scope of the program, while DHS and the administration review its legality, justifications for a possible wind-down, and other considerations relevant to deciding whether to keep or wind down the DACA policy.
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