DACA– The Saga Continues…
Today, the DHS put out a statement and memo addressing how they would be handling DACA in light of the Supreme Court decision and the District Court order to reinstate DACA.
In the memo, DHS says:
They will be rejecting initial DACA applications.
They will reject Advance Parole applications (except in exceptional circumstances).
DACA renewals will only be issued for 1 year going forward.
This memo is supposed to remain in effect while DHS evaluates what they will do with DACA going forward.
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On the upside, this seems to suggest that the Administration will not be making another attempt at rescinding DACA in the next few weeks/months which should bring some comfort to Dreamers. However, the plan DHS has outlined in this memo are in direct conflict of TWO court orders to reinstate DACA to its original state. This is shaping up to be an interesting showdown– what happens when the government chooses to ignore orders from the Supreme Court? Stay tuned, this definitely isn’t going to be the last update we hear on DACA.
In the meantime, some practitioners are still advising new DACA applicants to apply for DACA even knowing their applications will be rejected so they may be a part of an eventual class action law suit. But beware, new DACA applicants may also be putting themselves at risk since the government currently does not have their information. Perhaps the risk is minimal since applications will simply be returned, theoretically without keeping a copy for their records. Maybe it makes sense to apply for advance parole with the same thought?
These days, the only certainty we have in immigration is that immigration is uncertain, but we’ll leave that topic for another day.