CAP Report analyzes impacts of looming Supreme Court decision DACA

There is growing media coverage of mounting tension as immigrant communities wait for the DACA decision, which will decide whether President Trump’s rescission of the DACA program can go forward. A CAP report details the impacts of  the looming Supreme Court decision and analyzes policy pathways that will flow from the court’s opinion.

Assuming the court does not itself invalidate DACA protections or bar the administration from continuing to accept and process renewals, the report notes that there are still a number of questions regarding how the Trump administration and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will react to a decision that permits them to end DACA:

• Will USCIS adjudicate all renewal applications currently pending? As of March 31, 48,390 DACA recipients had pending renewal applications.
• Will USCIS open a window for individuals with near-term expirations to apply to renew their DACA while Congress debates permanent protections, similar to what it did in September 2017?

The report concludes: “Except in the most extreme scenario, the Trump administration will still have the power to issue automatic extensions for DACA recipients whose protections are set to expire over the course of the next year.” This continuing ability represents a form of prosecutorial discretion that preceded DACA. 

MHC