Court: Legal Immigrants Would Suffer if DACA Restarted
By RJ Hauman | August 17, 2018
Accepting new DACA applications would mean prioritizing illegal aliens over legal immigrants who are already waiting in line, the government said in a request to stay a court order requiring U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to restart DACA by August 23.
In papers filed by the Justice Department on Tuesday, USCIS said that if they are forced to restart the DACA program completely, it would slow down approval for guest workers and other legal immigrant seeking admission to the U.S. The agency also predicted a surge of some 50,000 new DACA applications from illegal aliens who were eligible for the program but were prevented from enrolling after the administration rescinded it last year.
While several activist judges have stopped the administration from ending DACA, no ruling has been as expansive as the one from Judge John D. Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Earlier this month, Judge Bates ordered that the Obama-era amnesty program be reopened even for illegal aliens who never initially qualified. His order would also reopen a pathway to citizenship for these illegal aliens – something the Obama administration insisted would never happen.
The Justice Department filing said “It is DHS’s considered judgment that rescinding DACA best achieves the agency’s immigration enforcement policies and priorities. By preventing the Secretary from implementing her considered policy judgment, the Court’s Orders not only harm Defendants but also the public at large.”
Stay tuned to FAIR as several DACA-related cases work their way through the courts…