Dreamers programme

A US judge in San Francisco temporarily barred President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday from ending a program shielding young people brought to the United States illegally by their parents from deportation. The Trump administration announced in September it would rescind Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or Daca, a decision that was challenged in multiple federal courts by a variety of Democratic state attorneys general, organizations and individuals.

Nearly 700,000 young people, known as Dreamers, were protected from deportation and allowed to work legally under the Daca programme as of September 2017, Alsup's ruling said. Trump ran on a hardline immigration platform during the 2016 presidential election, promising to end DACA and strengthen border protections to increase jobs for US workers, according to Reuters

Daca is a federal government program created in 2012 under Barack Obama to allow people brought to the US illegally as children the temporary right to live, study and work in America. Those applying are vetted for any criminal history or threat to national security and must be students or have completed school or military service. If they pass vetting, action to deport them is deferred for two years, with a chance to renew, and they become eligible for basics like a driving license, college enrollment or a work permit.

Who are the Dreamers? Those protected under Daca are known as “Dreamers” – by the time Trump announced his decision to rescind the program, 787,580 had been granted approval. To apply, they must have been younger than 31 on 15 June 2012, when the program began, and “undocumented”, lacking legal immigration status. They must have arrived in the US before turning 16 and lived there continuously since June 2007. Most Dreamers are from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras and the largest numbers live in California, Texas, Florida and New York.

They range in age from 15 to 36, according to the White House. Why are they called Dreamers? The Daca program was a compromise devised by the Obama administration after Congress failed to pass the so-called Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (Dream) Act, which would have offered those who had arrived illegally as children the chance of permanent legal residency. The bipartisan act was introduced in 2001 and has repeatedly failed to pass, according to The Guardian.