A federal judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, located in Brooklyn, has ordered the Trump Administration to restore all protections for individuals covered under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and to open the DACA program up to new applicants, CBS News reports.
Judge Nicholas Garaufis, a Clinton appointee, ordered the Department of Homeland Security to accept applicants to the DACA program for the first time since 2017, when the Trump Administration ordered it closed.
Garaufis also ordered DHS to grant two-year work permits to applicants, as the program originally mandated but was cut to one year by the Trump Administration.
Garaufis’s order comes after he ruled in November that acting secretary of DHS Chad Wolf held the position illegally, voiding the legality of any order he issued.