Maine immigrant advocates are praising the Supreme Court's ruling Thursday that rejected the Trump Administration's effort to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
The 650,000 DACA recipients will still be protected from deportation, and be authorized to work in the United States.
Julia Brown of the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project says this ruling is a huge victory for DACA recipients.
“Because they have been in limbo since 2017 when the Trump Administration announced they were going to terminate DACA, so this means they can continue to safely live, work and study in the US and in Maine.”
Brown says there are about 95 DACA recipients in Maine, although there may be many more people who are eligible and have not applied or been accepted to the program. Since that announcement in 2017, Brown says, the program “has not been open to new applicants, so we imagine a lot of people who are eligible will try to apply.”
The program does not provide a path to citizenship, and recipients have to reapply every two years.
“It's clear that we really need Congress to act to create a permanent pathway to status, because as it stands people still have to renew every couple years and there's no pathway to get a green card.”
