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DACA Has Been Fully Reinstated. Here’s What That Means for the Thousands of People Who Qualify for Protection From Deportation
DACA began as an executive action by the Obama Administration in 2012, protecting an estimated 645,000 young people from deportation, with the option to renew their application every two years. The Trump Administration terminated DACA in Sept. 2017, but the Supreme Court ruled in June 2020 that the government had not followed proper procedure to end the program, forcing the government to keep DACA alive and returning the program to what it was before Sept. 2017. In July 2020, Chad Wolf, Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), reinstated the program through a memorandum, but only for those who had already received DACA, without opening up applications to new potential recipients. It also limited the protections to one year with the option to renew.