Judge Paul Grimm of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland said on Friday that the program will be restored to its “state prior to September 5, 2017,” which means the status quo before the President Donald Trump will attempt to end it, thus giving hundreds of thousands of DACA eligible immigrants the opportunity to apply.
“We are extremely pleased and excited about Judge Grimm’s order, but it is really only affecting the decision the Supreme Court made a month ago,” said Nick Katz, CASA’s senior manager of legal services, who brought the lawsuit along with another immigrant rights group. . “I hope this order makes it clear (to the Department of Homeland Security) that they cannot delay any longer. They need to reopen the program.”
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the Department of Homeland Security that administers DACA, said it was reviewing the ruling.
Amid years of legal proceedings, DACA recipients have been able to apply for renewal, but new immigrants who met the criteria were unable to do so.
To be eligible, applicants had to have come to the US before the age of 16 and lived there since June 15, 2007. They could not have been more than 30 years old when the Department of Homeland Security enacted the policy in 2012. Beneficiaries must renew their protections every two years. The program does not provide permanent protection or a path to citizenship.
However, it is unclear how many people will be comfortable applying, since doing so requires providing identifying information to an administration that immigrants have become increasingly unreliable.
Since the Supreme Court ruling in June, Trump and senior administration officials have indicated that they plan to try to phase out the program a second time.
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf also said earlier this month that the administration “rewrote a way to curtail that program.” “This is for the president and it is his decision at the end of the day, but we are here to support,” he told Fox News.
The administration could reissue memoranda dismantling the program, as it did in 2017, but officials would have to demonstrate that the process was not rushed and that all considerations were taken into account. Any new attempt will likely face legal challenges.
This story has been updated with comments from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
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