Immigration agency says original amnesty still approving Dreamers’ applications

The administration encouraged Dreamers Friday to keep signing up for President Obama’s amnesty, saying the original “deferred action” program he announced in 2012 remains in effect even though the expanded version from late last year has been halted by a federal court.

Immigration officials were trying to combat the bad press stemming from Mr. Obama’s loss in a federal court last month, when a judge halted the expanded amnesty, ruling the president broke the law in issuing his new policy.

Judge Andrew S. Hanen didn’t halt the 2012 amnesty, however, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Leon Rodriguez said in a statement Friday that illegal immigrants who qualify under the original terms should still sign up for the program, known in government-speak as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.

“DACA lets you work without fear — if you are eligible, you should come forward with confidence,” Mr. Rodriguez said.

The 2012 amnesty grants a two-year stay of deportation and work permits to illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. before the age of 16, have been in the country since 2007, were under 31 years of age on June 15, 2012, when the president announced the policy, and had generally kept out of major criminal trouble. Applicants were also supposed to prove they were trying for a high school diploma or served in the armed forces.

Last November the president tried to expand the policy, moving up the eligibility date and removing the age limit. He also said applicants would be approved for three years, rather than two.

And the president created a new program for illegal immigrant parents of legal permanent resident or U.S. citizen children, granting them the same stay of deportation and work permits.

Judge Hanen halted the expanded amnesty, ruling the president didn’t follow the law in unveiling the plan.

More recently, he has blasted the administration for approving Dreamers’ applications for three years, rather than the original two-year period, saying that he was made to look “like an idiot” by Justice Department lawyers who had assured him none of the amnesty had taken place yet.

Some immigrant-rights advocates fear the bad publicity from the court cases has soured Dreamers who could still apply under the original 2012 policy, which has not been deemed illegal yet. Several challenges to the Dreamer policy are pending in courts, however.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told Congress on Thursday that the judge should have known the three-year applications were being approved because it was part of a memo submitted to the court.

“It should have been clear because it was in the record of the case that we began issuing three-year renewals effective Nov. 24, 2014,” Mr. Johnson said at a hearing of the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday. “That’s right here on page three of this directive.”