News Update

Federal judge orders stop to new DACA applications

A federal judge in Texas ordered the government to stop accepting new applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, on Friday.

The program, which provides temporary protection from deportation and permission to work for hundreds of thousands of undocumented young people who came to the U.S. as children, has been the subject of multiple court cases. First instituted in 2012, the Trump administration attempted to end the program in 2017 and first-time applications were not accepted from then until December 2020, when a separate federal judge ordered the government to begin accepting them again.

In a separate court case, Texas and eight other states sued to end DACA, arguing that the Obama administration did not have the legal authority to grant deportation protection and work permits. That case sparked Friday’s order to once again stop accepting new applications, from District Court Judge Andrew Hanen.

The case affects about 300,000 people now eligible to apply for DACA for the first time. To be eligible for DACA, applicants must have come to the U.S. before they turned 16 and have lived here since June 15, 2007, in addition to attending school or having graduated high school and not been convicted of certain crimes.

The judge did not order the government to end DACA for immigrants who currently have the protection.