The Homeland Security Department has doubled the rate of denials of Dreamers’ amnesty applications, according to numbers released Wednesday that suggest the administration had been taking a harder line even before President Trump’s announcement this month that he would phase out the DACA program altogether.
Some 32 percent applications for DACA status that were decided from April to June were rejected. That is twice the 16 percent rate of the last months of the Obama administration and far more than the 1 percent denial rate in the early days of the program.
Analysts said the increase is evidence that Mr. Trump’s get-tough approach is having an effect at all levels of Homeland Security, including the officers at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services who rule on applications for legal immigration benefits such as green cards, citizenship and DACA, the Obama-era deportation amnesty.
“I think the pro-enforcement message from the Trump administration is finally trickling down to the field supervisors and line employees at USCIS,” said Matthew J. O’Brien, a former official at the agency, who is now research director at the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “That would account for a portion of the higher rate of denials.” – READ MORE
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