President Barack Obama’s November 20, 2014, Executive Order addressed many significant issues of immigration law and allowed more individuals to qualify under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Consequently, on January 29, 2015, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) announced that it will start accepting applications for expanded DACA beginning on February 18, 2015. To be eligible to apply for expanded DACA, an applicant must be in the U.S. without lawful status, have entered the U.S. before his 16th birthday, and meet certain other criteria.
In the spring of 2012, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano issued a memorandum on the new Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program as a measure of relief to “Dreamers” when the DREAM Act failed to pass in Congress. Since 2012, DACA has allowed thousands of young people to obtain work authorization and offered safety from deportation.
