Attorney General Announces End of DACA

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the end of the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The program was created by former President Barack Obama in 2012. It allowed immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children to stay in the country and work legally.

Nearly 800,000 people have been accepted into the DACA program. Sessions said the program was unconstitutional and that the Department of Justice would not defend the program in the face of current legal challenges.

“It was inconsistent with the Constitution separation of powers,” Sessions said. “The Department of Justice cannot defend this overreach.”

According to an article by FOX News,  Elaine Duke, the acting director of the Department of Homeland Security said, “I want to be clear that no new initial requests or associated applications filed after today will be acted on,” Duke told Fox News in a written statement.

The wind-down process of DACA will include a six-month delay in any enforcement. The Donald Trump administration says the time will be given so Congress can act accordingly to prevent the hundreds of thousands of people in the program from being targeted for deportation.

In a tweet Tuesday morning, President Trump called on Congress to do their jobs when it comes to DACA.

According to DHS, no current beneficiaries of DACA will be impacted before March 5, 2018.

The Department of Homeland Security released a statement outlining how the program will come to an end.

DHS will:

  • Complete, on a case-by-case basis, any initial request for DACA that was filed properly and accepted by USCIS before the date of the latest memorandum that ended the program. Applications had to be received before September 5, 2017.
  • Will reject any applications that are filed after September 5, 2017.
  • Will complete, on a case-by-case basis, properly filed renewals for DACA as well as renewals for people whose employment authorizations expire between September 5, 2017, and March 5, 2018. Their applications have to be mailed and accepted by USCIS before October 5, 2017.
  • Will reject any applications that do not meet the parameters set above.
  • Will not terminate the grants of previously issued deferred action or revoke employment authorizations for the remainder of their validity periods.
  • Will not approve any new applications for advanced parole or form I-131. Applications that have been previously approved will be honored but it will be up to Customs and Border Protection to determine each person’s admissibility and the USCIS can terminate the advanced parole at any time.
  • Will close all pending advanced parole applications and refund fees associated.
  • Will continue to exercise discretionary authority to terminate or deny deferred action when immigration officers determine it is appropriate.

If you qualify to extend your DACA and employment authorization you can start your application with FileRight today. Our software guides you through the process and makes complicated forms easy to understand.

In preparation for the likely end of the DACA program, FileRight spoke to an immigration attorney about what recipients need to know about the end of the program. Michael Kagan, an immigration attorney from the University of Nevada Las Vegas started by saying the most important benefit to DACA recipients is the ability to work. The video below gives you important information about the program’s termination or continue reading.

What happens to your employment authorization?

Your employment authorization remains valid until it expires. Your employer does not have the right to ask you if you have DACA and does not have the right to ask you if DACA has expired, according to Kagan. He did say that your obligation is, to tell the truth, an answer honestly if your employer asks for a valid employment authorization.

Can you keep working?

Kagan told FileRight you can continue to work because verifying your employment authorization is your employer’s responsibility.

“If you have a job right now you can keep working at your job. It’s really on your employer to ask you is your employment authorization getting renewed? If they ask you, you have to give them an honest answer that you don’t have a new employment authorization,” Kagan said.

Kagan says that lying or presenting fake documents can be considered fraud and if you are caught could lead to serious consequences.

“You’ve turned a minor situation into something much more serious that could lead to an arrest and if you’re undocumented an arrest will likely lead to your deportation,” Kagan said.

Will you be deported?

As part of the wind-down, the Trump administration included a six-month delay that’s in place so Congress can pass a legislative solution for DACA recipients. A legislative solution would be a change in the law that makes the protections for DACA recipients permanent. If and when the program is rescinded, Kagan says DACA recipients can be a target of deportation.

“We would be going back to the situation before DACA,” Kagan said. “Could ICE take action against them and try to deport all the dreamers. If DACA is ended, legally ICE could do that. Will they do that, I don’t know.”

If you fall within the parameters of someone who can renew DACA, FileRight can make the process easy. Start your application today!

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