DACA Begins: President Obama Signs Deferred Action Memorandum
President Barack Obama issued a memorandum on this day temporarily suspending (or “deferring”) deportation actions against young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents when they were children.
The memorandum, officially called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, deferred actions are valid for two years and can then be renewed. (Deferred action is a procedure that had been used for a long time in immigration matters.) To be eligible, a person had to be born after June 16, 1981, brought to the U.S. before age 16, currently be at least 15 years old, have a high school graduate (or GED), have no criminal record, and be deemed not a threat to national security.
Persons in the U.S. under DACA became known as the “Dreamers.”
On September 5, 2017, President Donald Trump’s Attorney General, Jeff Session, announced that the government was repealing the authorization of the DACA program. The action provoked widespread protests. Congress was stalemated in attempts to establish DACA program by statute. Virtually all Democrats supported it, but Republicans were deeply divided.
Keep up with the latest DACA updates and news here
Read President Biden’s January 20, 2021 memo on DACA here
Q&As About Deferred Action: http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/just-facts/deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-qa-guide-updated
Learn more: Margaret Sands Orchowski, Immigration and the American Dream: Battling the Political Hype and Hysteria (2008)
See a timeline on U.S. immigration history here
Read the ACLU’s “Know Your Rights About DACA.”