Dozens of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) renewal applications were rejected by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services USCIS) because of a United States Postal Service (USPS) delay, according to the New York Times. When Donald Trump announced the end of DACA on September 5, his administration gave some DACA recipients exactly one month to scramble and submit complicated paperwork to renew their status one final time. But, the applications had to be received by October 5, and not just postmarked, but “accepted.” Dreamers in the Chicago and New York areas submitted their paperwork to USCIS through USPS, some weeks in advance. But because of a delay USPS is fully admitting to, dozens of applications arrived late and were rejected by USCIS:
The paperwork was mailed from New York in plenty of time. On Sept. 14, Allison Baker, a lawyer for the Legal Aid Society, sent a client’s application to renew a permit that would let him stay and work in the United States legally as part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — long before the Oct. 5 deadline. It was sent certified mail to be safe.
Tracking data from the United States Postal Service shows the envelope arriving in Chicago on Sept. 16 on its way to the regional processing warehouse of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that administers the program known as DACA.
Then the packet started circling Chicago in a mysterious holding pattern. From Sept. 17 to Sept. 19, it was “in transit to destination.” Then its tracking whereabouts disappeared until Oct. 4. Once again, it was “on its way.”
On Oct. 6, a day too late, it was delivered. And the application, for a 24-year-old man who asked to be identified only as José because his legal status was uncertain, was rejected.
According to attorneys, nearly three dozen DACA recipients from the New York area had their applications rejected because they arrived too late to USCIS’s Chicago processing area. In the Chicago area itself, nearly two dozen Dreamers had their applications rejected even though they were mailed from right there. “In a rare admission from a federal agency,” reports the Times, “the U.S. Postal Service took the blame. David A. Partenheimer, a spokesman for the post office, said there had been an ‘unintentional temporary mail processing delay in the Chicago area.’”
But even though this was none of the fault of DACA recipients, USCIS is sticking by the administration’s arbitrary deadline and refusing to accept the applications.
“I don’t care if it was incompetence by one federal agency or the other,” said Illinois Congressman Luis Gutiérrez, “the DACA applicants did everything right and they are still getting rejection notices and their whole lives in this country and the hopes and dreams of their families are at stake. I am sure there are many other cases like this across the country, but for the 21 cases that have come to my office so far, because somebody else did not do their job correctly we are taking innocent young immigrants and making them deportable. That is unacceptable.”
”The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency said nothing more could be done,” the Times reported. “The decisions were final.”
Because DACA is an executive order, signed by President Barack Obama in 2012, and not a statute, applicants cannot appeal the decision. Still, immigrants and their advocates viewed the agency’s unwillingness to revisit their applications as harsh and unfair.
“You can’t put the burden on the applicant to ensure the government agencies did their job,” said Camille Mackler, the director of legal initiatives for the New York Immigration Coalition. “Can you imagine if the I.R.S. didn’t pick up their mail for two weeks and you get a penalty because of it?”
This is pure negligence on behalf of immigration officials, and DACA recipients who had only weeks to come up with a $495 filing fee and paperwork shouldn’t be blamed. But really, refusing to budge from this October 5 deadline for DACA recipients who have proof they submitted their documents weeks in advance is the sort of thing you’d expect from an agency that failed to officially notify DACA recipients there was an October 5 deadline to begin with:
Vox’s Dara Lind reports that while “the Trump administration disclosed that 154,000 immigrants would be eligible for one last DACA extension as long as they applied by October 5,” this deadline information was not sent to DACA recipients. Not so much as an email or letter letting them know about this life-altering deadline, despite the federal government having their information.
“No official notices went out to recipients,” tweeted immigrant rights leader and author Julissa Arce, herself once an undocumented immigrant. “We are the only microphone.”
Undocumented immigrant youth continue to live in so much uncertainty that even a mail delay means they could lose their work permits and be torn from the only country they’ve ever known as home. This is an outrage, and another reason why Congress must pass a clean DREAM Act as soon as possible.