WASHINGTON, DC – Thousands of young undocumented immigrants celebrated a victory last month when the Supreme Court blocked President Trump’s attempt to end DACA.
NewsChannel 34’s Anna Wiernicki reports on the uncertainty of what happens next.
As hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients celebrated last month’s Supreme Court’s ruling keeping the program, another group of people were left waiting.
“There are many thousands more that qualify for DACA that have been unable to apply.”
Sarah Pierce, with the migration policy institute, says when President Trump moved to end the program, the US citizenship and immigration services stopped accepting new DACA applications.
“Since September of 2017 USCIS has only been adjudicating DACA applications of those who currently hold DACA or had held DACA previously,” says Pierce.
But USCIS hasn’t announced plans to re-open the application process, leaving 66,000 young immigrants who came to the US as children and are now old enough to apply for DACA, wondering what’s next for them.
“I don’t know how many of the DACA eligible folks are going to try to move forward with an application when the administration is still trying to dismantle it.”
Texas Republican Congressman Will Hurd says the fate of the program and those children is up to Congress.
But Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar says Congress can’t do anything if President Trump keeps fighting back.
“Unfortunately the President will come in and say, ‘I’ll give you DACA if you give me the wall,'” says Cuellar.
USCIS is also looking to Congress, saying in a statement “If Congress wants to provide a permanent solution for these illegal aliens it needs to step in to reform our immigration laws.”