Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)

DACA is an executive program created by the Obama administration in 2012 that grants temporary protection from deportation and work authorization to certain immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.

In June 2012, after years of failed efforts to pass the DREAM Act through Congress, the Obama administration created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals by executive memorandum. The program offered renewable two-year grants of protection from deportation, plus work authorization, to immigrants who had been brought to the United States as children, had lived in the country continuously, had no serious criminal record, and were in school, had graduated, or had served in the military. Applicants had to come forward, register with the government, pay a fee, and pass background checks. Roughly 800,000 people, often called Dreamers, received DACA status in the program's first years. The legal status of DACA itself has been contested almost from the start. Critics argue that it amounted to executive lawmaking, granting benefits that Congress had repeatedly declined to authorize. Supporters argue that it was a legitimate exercise of prosecutorial discretion, the same kind of priority-setting every administration applies to a vastly larger population of unauthorized immigrants than the system can actually deport. The Trump administration moved to end DACA in 2017. The Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that the administration had not followed proper procedure, leaving the program in place. Lower court rulings have since limited new applications. Congress has not passed permanent legal status for the affected population. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and subsequent legislation never anticipated a long-term population in this situation. DACA endures as a temporary measure waiting on a permanent resolution that has not arrived.