DACA back up and running

Young people who were brought to the United States illegally as children can again apply for deportation relief. Following a court order, the Department of Homeland Security on Monday said it would accept new applications to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Is this permanent? Not necessarily. The department said it “may seek relief from the order” as it continues to pursue legal ways to shut down the Obama-era program, which exempts about 650,000 people from deportation and makes them eligible for work permits but does not provide a clear path for them to gain legal status. The Trump administration maintains the program is unconstitutional. It survived on a technicality in June when the Supreme Court ruled that the administration did not follow the proper legal steps to end it in September 2017. A lower court judge then ordered the department to reopen applications and restore the program to its pre-2017 state.

Dig deeper: Read Harvest Prude’s report on the Supreme Court decision.