Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency tasked with removing people from the country, will now begin reviewing requests to avoid deportation by illegal immigrants who are seriously ill or dealing with severe financial hardship.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is charged with reviewing requests for permission to immigrate, mailed letters to an unspecified number of people in mid-August informing them their “deferred action” — a decision by the agency or a judge to temporarily not deport them because they met medical or financial hardship criteria — would suddenly end in 33 days.
“USCIS field offices will no longer consider non-military requests for deferred action, to instead focus agency resources on faithfully administering our nation’s lawful immigration system,” a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesperson wrote in a statement to the Washington Examiner Tuesday.
All recipients, including those receiving life-saving medical treatments for illnesses such as cancer, would have to leave the United States by that time or risk being deported by ICE. The official said the program is not being shuttered, but that current and potential recipients now need to apply with ICE for protections.
“I’d like to underscore that this does not mean the end of deferred action. Instead USCIS is deferring to ICE,” the official wrote. “As deferred action is a type of prosecutorial discretion used to delay removal from the United States, USCIS will defer to the DHS component agency responsible for removing individuals from the United States to make most non-DACA, non-military deferred action determinations.”
ICE is taking over the process because “deferred action is a law enforcement tool used to delay removal from the United States,” the official added.
The change went into effect Aug. 7. It will affect those with pending renewal requests, as well as all new requests for the two-year protection. The only classes of people who will not be kicked off are those who served in the U.S. military or their family members.
Approximately 1,000 people apply each year for this type of medical or financial protection, though U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said “the majority of them” are not approved, making it difficult to know how many people will be affected by the change. Those who are granted deferred action also have access to Medicaid and can gain permission to legally work while in the country.
The agency did not publicly announce the move. Instead, the Homeland Security agency told its local field offices to contact people on a case by case basis and alert them of the change, the American Immigration Lawyers Association wrote in a post last week.
The change does not affect the estimated 800,000 people who received protections from deportation under the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that was created through executive action under former President Barack Obama.
[Also read: Advocates sue Trump administration over failure to give detained migrants adequate medical care]
