Earlier this month it was reported that the Trump administration wasn’t accepting first-time applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, nearly a month after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration hadn’t followed federal procedural law or justified terminating DACA in 2017, ruling that the rescission was “arbitrary and capricious.”
On July 17 a federal court ordered the Trump administration to begin accepting new applications for the DACA program. Judge Paul W. Grimm of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland said his order “restores the DACA policy to its pre-September 5, 2017, status,” referring to the day the Trump administration announced it would rescind the program. Grimm’s order required the Department of Homeland Security to let DACA beneficiaries renew their status for two years, accept new applicants, and restore “advance parole,” which permits travel outside the country. But DHS did not do that. Instead, the agency maintained that it would reject new DACA applicants. It also declined to accept DACA renewals or reinstate advance parole.
Incredibly, the agency once again announced its open defiance of the order of the Supreme Court of the United States. On July 28, acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf declared that the agency would not accept new applications and that it would only grant one-year extensions to current beneficiaries “on a case by case basis.” The agency will also deny advance parole “absent exceptional circumstances.” Additional litigation is expected, as the Department of Homeland Security is clearly violating a federal order to accept new DACA and advanced parole applications.
