Q: How does the court decision affect people who are currently enrolled in the DACA program and other undocumented people?
A: For now, the situation for those currently enrolled in the DACA program is status quo. Current DACA recipients retain their DACA status, can apply for advance parole (a travel document issued by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that allows certain noncitizens inside the United States to depart and seek to reenter the country after temporary travel abroad), and are eligible to file for renewal of their DACA status.
For those with DACA, however, the status quo also means ongoing uncertainty and precarity of status.
While the 5th circuit has held that DACA was an overreach of the president’s authorized exercise of prosecutorial discretion, it remanded the case to the district court for consideration of new rule put into place by the Biden administration in August of this year. The Texas district court had previously ruled that DACA failed to go through the ‘notice and comment’ process it deemed necessary, while also indicating that DACA was most likely illegal as a matter of substantive law.
We cannot predict how long it will take for the district court to rule, how that new ruling will impact current DACA recipients, and then what the 5th circuit and ultimately the Supreme Court might do.
For those who might be DACA eligible but are not current DACA recipients, including those with pending first-time applications for DACA, their situation also remains the same; the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services cannot process any new applications for DACA, and they remain unable to access the intended protections and benefits afforded under the DACA program… .
Read Paoletti’s full interview with Penn Today.