It's been more than a month since the Supreme Court upheld the DACA program for young immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and grew up here without legal status.
But there’s still no federal guidance for new applicants. Last week, a federal court in Maryland ordered the Trump administration to begin taking new applications again. Meanwhile, thousands of would-be new DACA applicants in California have been waiting to file applications since President Trump rescinded the program in September 2017. Since then, only those with existing DACA permits have been allowed to renew them.
On Thursday, Luis Perez with the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles said the Trump administration is still not accepting new applications, in spite of last week's court ruling. His group had sent in an application for a legal client the day of the Supreme Court decision.
"We got silence from them," Perez said.
There have been news reports that new applications are being rejected, and the DACA information page on the website of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services still reads that "USCIS is not accepting requests from individuals who have never before been granted deferred action under DACA." The page is marked "Archived Content."
Still, groups like CHIRLA are encouraging prospective DACA applicants to ready their applications and the nearly $500 federal fee. They also caution that the Trump administration could try to end DACA again.
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