President Trump this week ordered an end to the “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” (DACA) program that was put in place by the Obama Administration in 2012. Under DACA, young undocumented aliens who reside in the U.S. and were brought by their parents to the U.S. illegally as children, and who meet strict eligibility requirements, have been permitted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to work in the U.S. legally and avoid deportation for two years, with the option for renewal of DACA status.
According to a memorandum issued by DHS announcing rescission of the DACA program, Attorney General Jeff Sessions had sent a letter to DHS on September 4, 2017, stating his findings that DACA represented an open-ended circumvention of immigration laws and was an unconstitutional exercise of authority by the Obama Administration.
Importantly, however, although DHS will reject all new DACA requests filed after September 5, 2017, it will allow current beneficiaries of the program to retain their DACA status for the remaining duration of their validity periods. Accordingly, DACA recipients with work authorization will not lose that authorization before their current DACA status expires. In addition, renewal requests that are received by October 5, 2017, for beneficiaries whose status will expire before March 5, 2018, will continue to be considered.
Any beneficiary whose DACA status expires in more than six months ‑ after March 5, 2018 ‑ will be ineligible for renewal and will lose work authorization upon expiration of his or her current validity period. Stated another way, the Administration has in essence given the U.S. Congress six months in which to come up with its own DACA program before the program’s benefits terminate completely.
Unless Congress acts, employers should prepare for the reality that thousands of employees will lose their authorization to work legally in the United States over the next few years as their DACA status expires.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.