Recent efforts from the Biden Administration to protect DACA

The Biden Administration recently took more steps in protecting DACA, which has helped thousands of undocumented immigrants who are children stay in the US. The Department of Homeland Security has finalized the ruling to the continue the policy. Professor Evelyn Cruz, director of the ASU Immigration Clinic, explains the new status of DACA.

There has been recent movement with DACA that has required complex levels of care, including new movement in the USCIS agency that provides regulations on how to adjudicate cases.

“There is no way that anyone who is not previously on the DACA process already with a card can apply,” Cruz said. There is no change to the requirements or process, it is just had modifications made that might protect it a bit more from being overturned by the courts.

“One of the challenges to the DACA, and also the termination of DACA, was that it was not done through the normal system of regulations drafting,” Cruz said. “Here what the agency did is they polished their proposal regulation, got 1,400 comments on that, and published a final regulation.”

One of the arguments against DACA is that it was done by memo and not legally bound. This new regulation strengthens DACA by eliminating one of the challenges, but there are still more that are being proposed by the states who are suing.

This new regulation has clearer rules for enforcing protections and written regulations, as opposed to a memo with not as much clarity. President Biden sys this new regulation puts DACA on a stronger footing.

“What really needs to happen is for the bills that are pending before the congress to go through, because if we look at the composition of the Supreme Court, the challenge to DACA through how it was established is likely to have a footing,” Cruz said.