By Camilo Montoya-Galvez | CBS News
A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to fully restore an Obama-era initiative that protects undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from deportation, requiring officials to open the program to new applicants for the first time since 2017.
Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn instructed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to post a public notice by Monday that states the department will accept and adjudicate Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) petitions from immigrants who qualify for the program but are not currently enrolled in it.
Garaufis also instructed officials to grant approved applicants work permits that last for two years, instead of the one-year period proposed by the Trump administration over the summer.
This ruling would return the DACA program to its original intended form, allowing for renewal applications in the form of 2 year work permits, and permitting new DACA applications for the first time since the Trump administration attempted to rescind the program back in 2017. More than one million immigrant teens and young adults may be able to avail themselves of the DACA program as early as next Monday thanks to this decision.
Darius Amiri, Rose Law Group Immigration Chair
