On Friday , December 4, 2020, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis ordered that the Trump Administration must restore the DACA program and accept petitions from new applicants. The ruling opens the door to new DACA applicants for the first time since 2017.
Judge Garaufis ruled that Acting Secretary Chad Wolf of the Department of Homeland Security and DHS officials do not “currently possess, nor have they ever possess the powers” to end the DACA program.
The judge directed DHS to post a public notice by Monday that it will accept petitions from new applicants for the DACA program. Judge Garaufis also ordered that the government produce a status report on the DACA program by January 4, 2021. The report must include the number of first time DACA applications that DHS received, adjudicated, approved, denied and rejected from November 14, 2020 to December 31 of this year.
