Major policy change: DACA accepting renewals for extending protected status

DACA supporters demonstrated in front of the White House.

THE DACA PROGRAM, which protects young immigrants from deportation, has resumed accepting renewal requests for deferred action.

Due to a federal court order, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service has started accepting the renewals after freezing applications when Donald Trump called for the end of the Obama-era program.

The change by the USCIS comes four days after a federal judge in California temporary blocked Trump's order to end the Deferred Actions for Childhood Arrivals program for the young people who were brought into this country by their undocumented parents.

The decision could impact up to 800,000 DACA enrollees including at least 13,000 Asian/Americans. They have been living in uncertainty, unable to plan their future or live their lives since Trump declared the of the DACA program last September.

Trump ordered Congress to come up with legislation to protect this group of immigrants. So far, members of Congress have been able to come up with a replacement. Democrats said that a decision for DACA had to come before they could agree on the budget, which needs to be made by Jan. 19.

The sticking point is the Trump administration's insistence that any deal on DACA must include funding for a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, to which Democrats are adamently opposed.

Following is the USCIS press release issued Saturday, Jan. 13 outlines the steps that need to be taken to renew a DACA application:

Individuals who were previously granted deferred action under DACA may request renewal by filing Form I-821D (PDF), Form I-765 (PDF), and Form I-765 Worksheet (PDF), with the appropriate fee or approved fee exemption request, at the USCIS designated filing location, and in accordance with the instructions to the Form I-821D (PDF) and Form I-765 (PDF). USCIS is not accepting requests from individuals who have never before been granted deferred action under DACA. USCIS will not accept or approve advance parole requests from DACA recipients.

If you previously received DACA and your DACA expired on or after Sept. 5, 2016, you may still file your DACA request as a renewal request. Please list the date your prior DACA ended in the appropriate box on Part 1 of the Form I-821D.

If you previously received DACA and your DACA expired before Sept. 5, 2016, or your DACA was previously terminated at any time, you cannot request DACA as a renewal (because renewal requests typically must be submitted within one year of the expiration date of your last period of deferred action approved under DACA), but may nonetheless file a new initial DACA request in accordance with the Form I-821D and Form I-765 instructions. To assist USCIS with reviewing your DACA request for acceptance, if you are filing a new initial DACA request because your DACA expired before Sept. 5, 2016, or because it was terminated at any time, please list the date your prior DACA expired or was terminated on Part 1 of the Form I-821D, if available.

Deferred action is a discretionary determination to defer a removal action of an individual as an act of prosecutorial discretion. Further, deferred action under DACA does not confer legal status upon an individual and may be terminated at any time, with or without a Notice of Intent to Terminate, at DHS’s discretion. DACA requests will be adjudicated under the guidelines set forth in the June 15, 2012 DACA memo.

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