ATTENTION Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Renewal Applicants

If your DACA renewal application was rejected by USCIS due to a delay with the USPS mail service or if your DACA renewal application was rejected by USCIS despite having arrived to the designated filing location by the deadline, your application may now be accepted for processing by USCIS.

Although initially the U.S. government said nothing could be done regarding these approximately 100 known rejected applications, on Wednesday, November 15, 2017, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security officially changed its mind announcing that it will allow for these applications to be accepted for processing. The deadline for the DACA renewals was October 5, 2017 and approximately 132,000 renewal applications were submitted with approximately 4,000 of them being rejected.

For a case that was rejected by USCIS due to a delay in the mail service to be accepted upon resubmission, these individuals would need to resubmit their case with proof that they timely submitted the DACA renewal application and that their application was receipted after October 5, 2017 due to a delay in the mail service. For those affected individuals who are unable to obtain such proof, they would submit their case to USPS for a case-by-case review and USPS would provide a letter for USCIS in the case that it determines that the case was affected by the delay in the mail service.

For a case that was rejected by USCIS despite having arrived to the designated filing location by the deadline, USCIS may proactively reach out to those individuals for them to resubmit their case. However, for those individuals who believe that their case was received by the deadline, but mistakingly rejected by USCIS, these individuals are instructed by USCIS to resubmit their case with proof that it arrived on or before the deadline.

Those individuals whose DACA renewal application was affected by either of these issues should contact their immigration attorney regarding any concerns they may have as soon as possible.

***Please keep in mind that this blog posting is for educational purposes only (i.e., to give you general information and a general understanding of this immigration related matter); this blog posting does not provide specific legal advice and does not form an attorney-client relationship.***