The federal government is struggling to renew work authorizations for thousands
of undocumented immigrants temporarily protected from deportation by the
Obama administration.
Thousands of undocumented immigrants who gained work permits as part of
an Obama administration effort to shield young people from deportation
are suddenly losing their ability to work legally as the federal government
struggles to renew their authorizations on time.
Exactly 11,028 young immigrants have had their Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals (DACA) status and work permits expire in spite of having applied
on time, according to numbers released for the first time to BuzzFeed
News by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that handles
the permits. The number of lapsed cases represents roughly 5% of the total
number of DACA renewals that USCIS has approved so far.
Yael Pineda, a 19-year-old undocumented student at UCLA, owes her job
to DACA, the Obama administration’s 2012 program that gave her a
work permit and protected her from deportation because she had arrived
in the United States as a child. When her DACA status started nearing
the end of its two-year term, Pineda applied to renew well within the
window of time recommended by USCIS, according to documents she shared
with BuzzFeed News.
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