Washington, D.C. — Twenty-five days have passed since the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling vacating the Trump administration’s September 2017 attempt to end DACA. The administration must immediately reopen the DACA program to new applicants or be in open defiance of the law, a new column released today by the Center for American Progress concludes. Even amid public statements and rumors that the Trump administration intends to try a second time to rescind the program, the administration must nevertheless follow the law and reopen applications.
As the Supreme Court’s decision goes into effect, 300,000 young people should now be allowed to file new applications for DACA. This includes 55,500 of the youngest DACA-eligible individuals who did not previously have the chance to apply because of the administration’s rescission in 2017, according to national and state-by-state data included in CAP’s analysis.
Key data in the column include:
- More than 1.1 million undocumented immigrants meet the basic DACA requirements—including being under age 31 as of June 15, 2012.
- 300,000 young immigrants should be able to apply for a first grant of DACA in light of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling.
- 55,500 young people have aged into eligibility after turning 15 in the nearly three years since the Trump administration illegally ended the initiative.
- This includes nearly 12,000 young people in Texas and 10,500 young people in California alone.
“When the Supreme Court vacated the Trump administration’s illegal attempt to end the DACA program, it gave the administration a chance to pause and reflect on the decision that would be so damaging to hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients, their families, and the country more broadly,” said Tom Jawetz, vice president of Immigration Policy at CAP and co-author of the column. “But the court also gave the administration a command to restore the program to the way it was operating before September 2017’s attempted rescission. By failing to do that, the administration is at this moment in open defiance of the law.”
“It is imperative that the Trump administration follow the law and reopen new DACA applications,” said Philip E. Wolgin, managing director of Immigration Policy at CAP and co-author of the column. “55,500 of the youngest potential recipients were shut out of the program because of the Trump administration’s first illegal actions on DACA; these young Dreamers, as well as anyone else who never had a chance to apply, should be able to see the same positive benefits that hundreds of thousands of their DACA-recipient siblings, families, and community members have seen. Rather than continue to saber-rattle on DACA, the administration must reopen new applications.”
Read the column: “The Trump Administration Must Immediately Resume Processing New DACA Applications” by Nicole Prchal Svajlenka, Tom Jawetz, and Philip E. Wolgin
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