Letter to the Hon. Elaine Duke, Acting Secretary of Department of Homeland Security - House Democrats Demand Department of Homeland Security Reverse Rejections of DACA Applications After USPS Error

Letter

Dear Acting Secretary Duke,

We write to urge you to process all renewal applications postmarked on or before October 5th, 2017, including those applications that arrived late as a result of error by the postal system.

According to a November 10th report from the New York Times, at least 33 recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in the New York area and 41 in Chicago fell victim to unusually long delays by the U.S. Postal Service when mailing their DACA renewal applications. According to the report, some of these applicants sent in their renewal paper work weeks in advance, yet error from the postal system led to the applications arriving at the processing warehouses after the October 5th deadline.

Overall, 22,000 people will lose their DACA protections because their applications for a final renewal because they weren't received by October 5th, including these individuals. This has deprived these people of their ability to work and stay in the country once their DACA permits expire.

In the aftermath of Attorney General Jeff Sessions' September 5th announcement that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program would be ending with the start delayed to March 5th, 2018, thousands of young undocumented Americans have lived in fear of being deported from the only country they have known once their permits expire. For those whose permits expired between September 5th 2017 and March 5th 2018, the October 5th deadline to mail in renewals was an arbitrary and short deadline; when the DACA program was first implemented, recipients were told to file for renewal at least three months in advance of the expiration date. Additionally, the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately notify immigrants of the deadline once President Trump decided to end the program. The failure by the Department of Homeland Security to take into account the number of eligible persons who would apply as well as the potential for error by the postal service when setting the deadline and processing the applications is shortsighted and unacceptable.

DACA recipients are young Americans who study, contribute to our economy, and serve in our armed forces. They are our friends, neighbors, and colleagues. The DACA recipients who sent in their renewals well in advance do not deserve to have their applications rejected for factors outside of their control.

We urge you to reverse your current stance and process those applications postmarked by October 5th.