AJC Praises Trump Administration Decision to Preserve DACA Program

NEW YORK, June 16, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AJC welcomed the Department of Homeland Security announcement that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program will continue. The program, established in 2012, allows some undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. as children to receive renewable two-year protection from deportation, access to higher education, and work permits.

"Preservation of DACA is a welcome relief for the hundreds of thousands of people who have benefitted from the program and have been contributing to the communities where they live across the United States," said Richard Foltin, AJC Director of National and Legislative Affairs.

"Regrettably, the President has not yet decided on the long term fate of DACA, and, moreover, has made clear that a similar program designed for the undocumented parents who brought their children to the U.S. will never be implemented. The parents will continue to live in fear of deportation, and their families will face the unconscionable threat of being torn apart."

Immigrants eligible for DACA must have entered the U.S. before their 16^th birthday, and lived here continuously since June 15, 2007; be currently in school, a high school graduate, or honorably discharged from the military; be under age 31 as of June 15, 2015; and have not been convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor or otherwise pose a threat to national security.

A proposed expansion of the DACA program, called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, or DAPA, was blocked by a Texas court, and the U.S. Supreme Court deadlocked, 4-4, on a challenge to that ruling last year.

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SOURCE American Jewish Committee