The President Biden Administration has released the final version of a rule to protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. This fundamental program protects those that were brought to the United States as children without legal status by providing them with protection against deportation as well as work authorization. Unfortunately, a large number of high school graduates will not be eligible to apply for DACA as they were not present in the United States before June 15th, 2007, which is a requirement for eligibility. Also, the DACA program is currently in legal peril as several states sued the government to terminate the program in its entirety as they claim it is “not legal”. Countless immigration advocates are afraid that the court will rule against the DACA program, which will subsequently jeopardize the lives of so many “Dreamers”, as DACA recipients are frequently referred as.
In response to this issue, the DACA rule was drafted, but it did not create noticeable solutions. It did not increase the number of people eligible for the program nor did it resolve the processing delay issues. There is no guarantee that the rule will go into effect, and if the program as a while gets abolished, so many individuals will be at risk of deportation and loss of work authorization. While DHS has made it its mission to protect the DACA program, if the Fifth Circuit declares the program to be illegal, the government will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
