Announced in 2012, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) allows some young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children to live and work in the country temporarily if they meet certain eligibility requirements. In November 2014, the Obama administration issued another executive order to allow new and renewing applicants to get DACA for three rather than two years, and that the Department of Homeland Security would modify eligibility requirements to expand the applicant pool. At the same time, the administration announced Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA), which would similarly allow some undocumented parents of American children to live and work in the U.S. temporarily.
Texas and 25 other states sued the federal government in a Federal District Court to block the implementation of DAPA and the expansion of DACA shortly after they were announced. That case eventually made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In February 2015, before DAPA and the expansion of DACA went into effect, U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen issued a nationwide injunction that blocked both initiatives. U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen’s order subsequently was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The Supreme Court recently announced a 4-4 decision in a case challenging President Obama’s executive order to delay deportation proceedings for as many as five million unauthorized immigrants and to allow them to work in the United States. The decision leaves in place an appeals court ruling blocking the president’s executive order. The Department of Justice has asked for a rehearing,
Just under half of the nation’s unauthorized immigrant population, estimated at 11 million, could have benefited from DAPA, DACA and Expanded DACA. DAPA, DACA and Expanded DACA would have protected three categories of unauthorized immigrants:
DAPA
Unauthorized parents of children who are United States citizens or legal permanent residents born on or before Nov. 20, 2014. To qualify, parents must have been in the United States since Jan.1, 2010. DAPA immigrants would have been granted authorization to work in the United States.
DACA
Unauthorized immigrants born after June 15, 1981 who were brought to the United States before their 16th birthday and have been in the country since June 15, 2007.
Expanded DACA
Unauthorized immigrants brought to the United States as children before January 2010.
The order expanded the DACA program to include unauthorized immigrants who entered the United States before January 2010, from the current cutoff of June 15, 2007. The expansion also eliminated the requirement that applicants be younger than 31 years old.
The status of young people who had qualified for the initial DACA program, which was created in 2012, were not at issue in the Supreme Court case. However, they could have also benefited from the decision, because the 2014 initiative increased the deferral period to three years from two years.
More than 10 million people live in households with at least one potentially DAPA-eligible adult. Two-thirds of these adults have lived in the United States for at least 10 years.
The Rev. Peter Morales, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), issued this statement on the U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States v. Texas: “I am profoundly disappointed in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 4-4 decision in United States v. Texas upholding a lower court decision that struck down President Obama’s executive actions on immigration that expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and created Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA). My thoughts are with the millions of immigrant families whose lives are made harsher by this outcome.
For years, the Unitarian Universalist community has supported immigrant families and immigration reform. In 2013, the UUA’s General Assembly passed a statement of conscience declaring immigration to be a moral issue.”
The Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice in the Capital Region (UUSJ) are working to move the U.S. Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform to address the needs of the 11 million undocumented individuals present in the United States. UUSJ strongly endorses a path to citizenship for millions of these law-abiding people in this country.