The Trump administration has stated that they will no longer accept new DACA applications and will continue to reject them while the administration considers whether to end the program or not.

According to Town Hall:

The Trump Administration is halting applications to the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as it examines the policy’s viability going forward, the Department of Homeland Security announced in a memo on Tuesday. DHS also said it would no longer accept applications for Employment Authorization Documents and is renewing existing DACA protections for only one year, rather than two.

The news comes just weeks after the Supreme Court rejected the administration’s effort to end the Obama-era policy, which has provided legal protections and work permits to some 800,000 unauthorized immigrants, or “DREAMers,” who came to the United States as children. The Court ruled that the administration’s move to cancel the program was “arbitrary and capricious” and asserted that it had failed to “provide a reasoned explanation for its action.” It did not, however, address the legal viability of DACA or its rescission, thereby leaving open the opportunity for the White House to pursue other avenues to repeal.

Since then, the U.S. District Court in Maryland ruled that the DACA policy must be restored to what it was before the Trump administration rescinded it in September 2017 and ordered the White House to begin accepting new DACA applications. Likewise, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who led the multistate lawsuit to restore DACA, came out in opposition to the Trump administration’s efforts, saying the Supreme Court’s ruling made it clear that “DACA stands, and now its doors are open to new Dreamers to apply.”

President Trump has promised to sign an Executive Order creating a “road to citizenship” with a focus on “merit-based immigration action,” although White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany has said the president would prefer to see Congress to provide a “legislative fix” to the issue. Rescinding DACA has been among Trump’s goals since he first announced his candidacy for president and vowed to “immediately terminate President Obama’s illegal executive order on immigration.”

Left-leaning groups denounced the decision:

However, Acting Secretary Chad Wolf responded to the criticism by stating that the Executive Branch has clear lawful authority to end unlawful programs like DACA.

Wolf continued by stating: “The DACA program was created out of thin air and implemented illegally… The American people deserve to have the Nation’s laws faithfully executed as written by their representatives in Congress—not based on the arbitrary decisions of a past Administration.”