On November 20, 2014, President Obama announced his “immigration accountability executive action.” One purpose of the plan was to provide temporary protection from removal for millions of unauthorized immigrants currently living in the United States through prosecutorial discretion based deferred action programs.
The Deferred Action for Parental Accountability Program (DAPA) was designed to provide relief from deportation and work authorization to illegal parents of United States citizen or Lawful Permanent Residents (green card holders). Another program initiative was to expand Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). This program is to modify current DACA requirements by eliminating the age ceiling and changing the residential requirements date to January 1, 2010. Expanded DACA was planned to begin on February 18, 2015. DAPA was planned to begin sometime in May of 2015.
On February 17, 2015, a Federal judge in Texas blocked President Obama’s executive action announced in November. Due to the federal court order, USCIS will not be accepting requests for expanded DACA on February 18th as originally planned. In addition, USCIS has suspended the implementation of Deferred Action for Parents (DAPA). This court injunction does not affect existing DACA.