On June 18, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that DHS’s decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act. The ruling allowed Dreamers across the country to continue to have temporary protection from deportation but also left open the possibility that DHS could attempt to issue a new memorandum rescinding DACA. On July 28, 2020, Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf issued a memo that, pending his full reconsideration of the DACA policy, instructed USCIS to reject all pending and future initial requests for DACA, reject all pending and future applications for advance parole absent exceptional circumstances, and limit the period of DACA renewals to one year.
However, on December 4, 2020, a U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York ordered DHS to fully reinstate the DACA program, finding that Wolf’s July 2020 memo reconsidering the DACA program must be put aside. Meaning, that effective immediately, the DACA program is reinstated in full. This change is already reflected on the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service’s website.