Nov. 17 (UPI) — U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program whose applications were lost or delayed in the mail can resubmit them.
Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke directed the USCIS to accept DACA renewal requests from individuals whose applications were not received by the Oct. 5 deadline due to a U.S. Postal Service error.
“USCIS will not accept requests that do not include individualized proof that the request was originally mailed in a timely manner to be received by the October 5 deadline, and that the cause for receipt after the Oct. 5, 2017, deadline was the result of USPS mail service error,” the agency said.
The agency originally said nothing could be done after The New York Times reported Friday that at least 74 applications from the New York area and Chicago had been rejected due to mail problems in Chicago.
New York lawyers also reported that 18 of 34 applications had been delivered on time, but were not accepted by the immigration agency until the next day and USCIS said Thursday it would contact those affected.
“In addition, USCIS had discovered certain cases in which the DACA requests were received at the designated filing location (e.g., at the applicable P.O. Box) by the filing deadline, but were rejected,” the agency said. “USCIS will proactively reach out to those DACA requestors to inform them that they may resubmit their DACA request.”
President Donald Trump‘s administration rescinded the DACA campaign in September, meaning individuals were no longer able to request deferred action under DACA after the Oct. 5 deadline.
Out of 132,000 applications at least 4,000 renewals were rejected because they were late.
As of Wednesday the number of DACA renewal applicants who had been rejected because of mail delays had reached at least 115, including cases in Texas, Wisconsin, Washington State, North Carolina and Michigan, The New York Times reported.
