The
federal government said on Saturday that it would resume accepting
renewal requests for a program that shields from deportation young
immigrants who were brought illegally to the United States as children.
In a statement, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services said that “until further notice,” the Obama-era program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,
known as DACA, “will be operated on the terms in place before it was
rescinded” in September, when President Trump moved to end it.
The decision came after a federal judge in California issued a nationwide injunction on Tuesday ordering the Trump administration to resume the DACA program.
The
agency said on Saturday that people who were previously granted
deferred action under the program could request a renewal if it had
expired on or after Sept. 5, 2016. People who had previously received
DACA, but whose deferred action had expired before Sept. 5, 2016, cannot
renew, but can instead file a new request, the agency said. It noted
that the same instructions apply to anyone whose deferred action had
been terminated.
But
officials also said they were not accepting requests from individuals
who have never been granted deferred action under DACA.
President Barack Obama created the DACA program in 2012 to give young immigrants the ability to work legally in the United States. In attempting to end it in September, President Trump argued that Mr. Obama’s actions were unconstitutional and an overreach of executive power.
Critics
of the president’s decision to end the policy later sued the
administration, saying that shutting down the program was arbitrary and
done without following the proper legal procedures.
The
legal battle is one piece of a fierce debate in Washington. Democrats
and Republicans have sparred for months about how to provide relief for
about 800,000 immigrants who could face deportation.
Mr. Trump met with lawmakers on Tuesday afternoon in an hourlong televised meeting to begin negotiations.
Later
that day, Judge William Alsup of Federal District Court in San
Francisco handed down his ruling, writing that the administration must
“maintain the DACA program on a nationwide basis” as the legal challenge
to the president’s decision goes forward.
In
his ruling, the judge laid out a road map for the government that
officials appeared to follow. He said that previous beneficiaries of
DACA, known as Dreamers, must be allowed to renew their status in the
program, though the government would not be required to accept new
applications from immigrants who had not previously submitted one.
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