The Federal Court in Maryland ruled on Friday that USCIS should fully reinstate the DACA program. This means that USCIS is required to start accepting new applications for DACA apart from renewal requests.
The Trump administration tried to put an end to DACA in September 2017. USCIS stopped accepting applications for DACA. However federal courts ordered against the decision in January 2018 and since then USCIS started accepting renewal applications but didn’t allow any new applicants to file for the first time.
Roughly there are 650,000 active DACA recipients as of March 31, 2020. So only their renewal applications were accepted in the last 2 and 1/2 years. According to americanprogress.org, more than 300,000 individuals are eligible to apply for the DACA program. But USCIS was not accepting any new applications.
Supreme Court on DACA
Last month the Supreme court ruled that the Trump administration did not follow proper procedures according to the law in its move to end the DACA program and affirmed a lower court ruling that required the program’s full reinstatement.
However subsequent to the ruling, there was a debate if the administration has to comply with the opinion before the high court issued a certified judgement. Even though the Supreme court affirmed a lower court ruling to reinstate the program fully USCIS did not accept any new applications nor gave any instructions on this matter.
So this new ruling by the Federal Court in Maryland requires USCIS to start accepting first-time applications which would benefit more than 300,000 individuals.
USCIS has provided no updates regarding accepting the new applications after the Federal court ruling. But the rule is clear and if you are applying for the first time this is the right time to apply. Use our form preparation service to prepare Form I-821D and send it to the USCIS before there are further changes to the program.
Future of DACA
The Supreme Court order last month did not put a stop to the actions of the Trump administration to end the program it just merely ruled that the method used to put an end was not according to the law. So the Trump administration can and may stop this program altogether with different tactics.
And recently Trump has told repeatedly that he is working on providing a pathway to citizenship for dreamers. We don’t know what exactly will happen. One can only speculate that Trump might provide a pathway to active DACA recipients and leave out anybody who has no active DACA status.
We simply don’t know. But logically it seems like having an active DACA status might be the right decision. So if you are planning to apply for DACA the first time use our form preparation service to prepare your Form I-821D and send it to the USCIS.
