A US judge has blocked attempts by the White House to end a programme barring the deportation of children brought illegally to the US by parents.<\/p>\n
In September, President Donald Trump rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) programme.<\/p>\n
But San Francisco’s Judge William Alsup ruled it must stay in place while litigation against the move continues.<\/p>\n
The Obama-era scheme protects some 800,000 people, and also provides temporary permits for work and study.<\/p>\n
In his ruling, William Alsup stated that “the government is hereby ordered and enjoined, pending final judgment herein or other order, to maintain the Daca programme on a nationwide basis on the same terms and conditions as were in effect before the rescission”.<\/p>\n
He said the justice department’s argument that the scheme was illegal was based on a “flawed legal premise”.<\/p>\n
The district judge ordered the government to process renewal applications from people who had previously been covered.<\/p>\n
However, this would not be the case for those who had never before received protection under the programme.<\/p>\n
White House officials have so far made no public comments on the latest development.<\/p>\n
Despite scrapping the programme in September, President Trump delayed enforcement to give Congress until March to enact a replacement plan for Daca recipients, who are known as “Dreamers”.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Democrats and Republicans announced that they would work together on a new immigration bill to protect border security, chain migration, the visa lottery system and the Daca.<\/p>\n
Democrats have repeatedly said that they will block any legislation that contains funding for the border wall with Mexico – a key campaign pledge of Mr Trump’s.<\/p>\n
The scheme was created in 2012 by then President Barack Obama, to shield children of undocumented immigrants from deportation.<\/p>\n
It also provided work and study permits for those it covered.<\/p>\n
In order to qualify for Daca, applicants under the age of 30 were required to submit personal information to the Department of Homeland Security, including addresses and phone numbers.<\/p>\n
They had to pass an FBI background check, have a clean criminal background, and either be in school, recently graduated or have been honourably discharged from the military.<\/p>\n
In exchange, the US government agreed to “defer” any action on their immigration status for a period of two years.<\/p>\n
The majority of dreamers are from Mexico and other Latin American countries.<\/p>\n
The justice department has said no current Daca recipients will be affected by the decision to scrap the scheme before 5 March 2018, but no new applications will be taken.<\/p>\n
Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"