Immigration officers will "reject without prejudice" DACA petitions from those not enrolled in the program, dashing the hopes of hundreds of thousands of potential new applicants, including more than 66,000 immigrant teens who turned 15 years of age after September 2017. Under the new guidelines, current DACA recipients will only be eligible for one-year extensions, rather than the two-year protections that have been in place since 2012.

The move is a stopgap action while the administration undertakes a "comprehensive review" of the Obama-era program and the justifications offered in 2017 for dismantling it, according to a senior administration official who requested anonymity. Officials intend to use the review to formulate a new decision on the program's fate in the future.

Erika Andiola, a DACA recipient and the chief advocacy officer at the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education Legal Services (RAICES), called Tuesday's decision "disheartening," highlighting the impact it will have on immigrant youths who were hoping to apply for DACA for the first time and had contacted her group for assistance.

"Yes, this is a way for people to have work permits. It's a benefit in general for people to be able to work," Andiola told CBS News. "But it's even more than that. It's also the ability to feel safer and to be able to live without the fear of having a police officer or an immigration agent pick you up and deport you."

It is unclear whether Tuesday's announcement complies with recent orders from the Supreme Court and lower courts that prevented the administration from immediately ending DACA — an initiative that has been broadly popular amid the nation's contentious debate around immigration.

In a 5-4 opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court ruled in June that the Trump administration violated federal administrative law in its termination of DACA, setting aside the 2017 memo that would've ended the program. The majority's opinion did not address the program's legality, nor did it preclude the Trump administration from crafting a new rationale for ending it.

More recently, a federal judge in Maryland ordered the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which administers DACA, to fully restore the program to way it operated before the Trump administration moved to terminate it in the fall of 2017.

In a memo published Tuesday, Chad Wolf, the top official at the Department of Homeland Security, said he was rescinding directives issued by his predecessors that would have ended DACA. Wolf said he was also making immediate changes to the program — including the limited extensions — to "mitigate my enforcement policy concerns while I conduct a full and careful consideration of a full rescission."

Wolf said he has "serious doubts" about the legality of offering a large group of undocumented immigrants protections from deportation, suggesting that Congress should be responsible for adjusting their legal status. He also expressed concern about sending "mixed messages" on the enforcement of immigration laws that could encourage unauthorized migration. While he conceded that new border-crossers are not eligible for DACA, Wolf said that keeping the program in place could convey "a potential for similar future policies."

In justifying the decisions to bar initial applications, Wolf said immigrants who were not previously enrolled in DACA lacked the "reliance interests" of current recipients, whom he recognized had formed their lives around the protections, contributed to the U.S. economy and used the program to help their families, schools and employers. While acknowledging that requiring current beneficiaries to apply for renewals every year would also require them to pay more in application fees, Wolf said the shortened period of protection would lessen "the lasting effects of the DACA policy if I ultimately decide to rescind it."

Wolf also announced his department will continue to reject requests from DACA recipients for "advance parole" — which allows them to travel outside the country and return — absent exceptional circumstances.

The administration revealed on Tuesday that Attorney General William Barr had, in late June, withdrawn a letter by his predecessor, Jeff Sessions, that raised doubts about the legality of DACA. Barr also withdrew a 2014 Obama-era Justice Department legal opinion that concluded the program was a lawful exercise of executive authority, according to a letter addressed to Wolf.

"I wish to wipe the slate clean to make clear beyond doubt that you are free to exercise your own independent judgment in considering the full range of legal and policy issues implicated by a potential rescission or modification of DACA, as contemplated by the Supreme Court," Barr wrote in his letter, dated June 30.

Asked how the continued rejection of initial applications for DACA conforms with judicial orders, a senior administration official said the Department of Homeland Security would've only been bound to accept them had Wolf not issued a new memo on Tuesday. The official said the memo did not create a new program, but rather serves as an "intervening action" while the administration conducts its review.

Marielena Hincapié, the executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, noted that her group, one of several that challenged DACA's termination in court, is exploring "all options" to respond to Tuesday's announcement, which she said ensures the issue will be a central one during this year's presidential election.

"Trump's announcement really lays the groundwork to kill the DACA program and makes it clear that DACA is now on the ballot in November," Hincapié told CBS News.

The U.S. government first agreed to shield undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S as children from deportation in 2012, when President Obama announced the Department of Homeland Security would start accepting and processing applications for these temporary protections from young immigrants who met certain requirements.

The prerequisites included having no serious criminal convictions, having arrived in the U.S before they were 16, having lived in the country since at least 2007 and earning an American high school diploma, a GED or serving honorably in the military. DACA recipients also receive temporary, renewable work permits.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4594273&forum_id=2#40680550)

it was a process issue. they corrected it.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4594273&forum_id=2#40682595)

IDK if the DC is overstating what is required or not, though given how shitlib judges have acted for the past 4 years it wouldn't be surprising if District Judge has overinterpreted SCOTUS in order to affect a policy change that he wants

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4594273&forum_id=2#40682498)

Law360 (July 29, 2020, 5:32 PM EDT) -- A New York federal judge on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from implementing its controversial wealth test for immigrants during the national health emergency stemming from the coronavirus pandemic.

U.S. District Judge George Daniels said that the states and nonprofits challenging the so-called public charge rule, which would allow the government to deny green cards to immigrants found likely to need public benefits, had provided "ample evidence" that the policy deters immigrants from seeking COVID-19 testing and could threaten efforts to curb the spread of the disease.

"As a direct result of the rule, immigrants are forced to make an impossible choice between jeopardizing public health and personal safety or their immigration status," Judge Daniels wrote.

The judge also found that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' efforts to address these concerns were "plainly insufficient." The agency's alert informing immigrants that any testing or treatment for coronavirus would not be counted against them is ambiguous and "further adds chaos and confusion," Judge Daniels said.

And while the challenge was brought by New York, Connecticut and Vermont, Judge Daniels held that the immigration rule should be halted nationwide.

"The effect of the rule's application should not depend on what side of the George Washington bridge between New York and New Jersey one fortuitously finds oneself," he said.

In a second Wednesday ruling, Judge Daniels also temporarily barred the U.S. Department of State from applying the public charge criteria to green card applicants abroad, after advocacy groups challenged those restrictions in December.

The rulings mark a major victory for the New York-led state coalition and immigrant advocacy groups, which renewed their efforts in a pair of combined cases to block the immigration rule as confirmed cases of COVID-19 rose in the U.S.

"Immigrants have been on the front lines fighting this pandemic from the start, and today's injunction will ensure they are not targeted for obtaining health coverage or other vital services as they continue to battle COVID-19," New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.

Critics of the rule have argued since it was first issued in August 2019 that it will discourage immigrants and mixed-status households from seeking out health care services for fear of immigration repercussions, threatening public health as a result.

Five federal judges, including Judge Daniels, have found that the public charge rule is likely illegal. Judge Daniels went so far as to call it "repugnant to the American Dream."

But early this year, as those legal battles waged on, the U.S. Supreme Court gave the Trump administration the green light to implement the immigration rule across the country while those legal challenges to the policy continued.

USCIS has enforced the rule in all 50 states since February, allowing the agency to evaluate a green card applicant's past usage of public assistance programs including food stamps and housing subsidies, as well as other factors such as age and health to determine whether the immigrant will likely become a "public charge" in the future.

When the coronavirus outbreak hit the U.S., New York and New York City, Connecticut and Vermont urged the high court to revisit the issue in light of the ongoing health threat. The justices declined to lift their stay on Judge Daniels' injunction in a brief order in April and punted the issue back to Judge Daniels' court.

If the federal government decides to appeal Judge Daniels' Wednesday order, it could pave the way for the justices to review the rule a third time.

Judge Daniels said Wednesday that while he is mindful of the Supreme Court's decision to permit implementation of the rule while lawsuits progressed, the high court did not have the opportunity to consider the effects of the coronavirus pandemic when it made that decision.

In the months since the Supreme Court paused his initial ruling against the public charge rule, the "irreparable harm and public interests that warrant an injunction have come into sharper focus," Judge Daniels said.

"What were previously theoretical harms have proven to be true. We no longer need to imagine the worst-case scenario; we are experiencing its dramatic effects in real time," he wrote. "Equitable relief has become nothing short of critical."

Javier H. Valdés, co-executive director at Make the Road New York, one of the organizations that challenged the rule at the lower court, said in a statement Wednesday that the public charge rule has "caused immense harm to our communities — harm that intensified, as our country is in the midst of a health crisis."

"We applaud the court's decision and will continue to fight to stop the Trump administration's reckless and inhumane attacks on immigrants," he said.

A spokesperson for USCIS didn't respond to a request for comment late Wednesday.

The state coalition is represented by the attorneys general of New York, Vermont and Connecticut and Corporation Counsel of the City of New York.

The organizations are represented by attorneys with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Legal Aid Society.

The federal government is represented by Keri L. Berman of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Division.

The cases are State of New York et al. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security et al., case number 1:19-cv-07777, Make the Road New York et al v. Cuccinelli et al, case number 1:19-cv-07993, and Make the Road New York et al v. Pompeo et al, case number 1:19-cv-11633, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4594273&forum_id=2#40682617)

lol what does being on welfare have to do w "COVID-19 testing"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4594273&forum_id=2#40682725)

This stuff is just funny at this point.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4594273&forum_id=2#40682895)

10% of them scratched their chin and thought, "wow, that's clever!"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4594273&forum_id=2#40683243)