The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, widely known as DACA, was launched in June 2012 by then-President Barack Obama. The program allowed over 700,000 young immigrants to be “lawfully present” in the United States without fear of deportation for a period of 2 years. DACA status allowed these young people to obtain work permits and to apply for driver’s licenses, but did not provide legal status or a pathway to citizenship. To be eligible for DACA, applicants had to be at least 15 years of age at the time of applications, and had to be under the age of 31 on or before June 15th, 2012. Several other criteria were established for applicants to be qualified for DACA: applicants could not have been convicted of a felony, could not have had lawful status prior to June 15, 2012, and would not be considered if they were deemed a threat to national security or public safety. In addition, DACA applicants had to either be pursuing their education, have completed high school, or have been an honorably discharged veteran of the US Armed Forces or Coast Guard. Between 2012 and 2018, over 700,000 people had obtained protection under DACA.
However, in the Fall of 2017, the Trump Administration sought to rescind the DACA program. From that point forward, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) immediately stopped accepting new DACA applications. Individuals who were previously granted DACA status were allowed to apply for renewal, but only for a very brief amount of time after the decision. Through a series of revocations and memos, the executive branch attempted to end the program altogether by not accepting renewal applications and by not defending the policy in court. However, several injunctions ordered by multiple Federal courts in early 2018 forced the administration to accept renewals nationwide, and the Supreme Court struck down the Trump Administration's efforts to end the program and required them to begin accepting new DACA applicants. On the very first day after President Joseph Biden was inaugurated, he issued an executive order restoring DACA to its original form and adding additional measures to strengthen the program.
https://www.uscis.gov/archive/renew-your-daca
