Well, unfortunately, on June 23rd the Supreme Court refused to allow the DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans) program to start, which means anyone who is a parent of a US citizen and who was hoping to get a work permit later this year will have to continue waiting. The Supreme Court did not give a reason for their decision, so we don’t know if it was a technicality that caused them to prevent the program from going forward or a fundamental disagreement that the president doesn’t have the power to do what he was trying to do. It is very frustrating that such a large majority of the country is in favor of immigration reform but the reform gets blocked just for political reasons.
The little bit of good news from all of this is that President Obama announced that people that would have qualified for DAPA are not going to be deported unless they commit a crime here. Another bit of good news is that anyone that qualified for a work permit under the DACA program that President Obama passed in 2012 is unaffected by the Supreme Court’s decision.
Although it is disappointing that the DAPA program cannot go forward, there is some hope for the future. It looks like Hillary Clinton is likely to become the next president, and she has already announced that she will pass an even better deferred action program for immigrants within her first 3 months in office. So it looks like another DAPA style program will be coming next year, probably during the summer. But I’ll keep you updated about this in the coming months.
But none of this will happen unless we elect Hillary Clinton as our next president. So get out there and VOTE FOR CLINTON this November. She’s the best hope for immigration reform, and if the Democrats get a majority of Congress, they can pass actual immigration reform once and for all!