1. To protect immigrants’ rights under DAPA/DACA, and to overcome the primary reason for the injunction now blocking DAPA/expanded DACA, President Obama should promptly issue formal regulations on DAPA/DACA. The administration decided to issue DAPA/DACA as a “policy” (basically a “privilege” for applicants) that can be changed overnight by any future Administration, rather than as a formal “regulation” (also called a “substantive rule”) that extends real rights to applicants and cannot be cancelled overnight.
Under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), a federal agency must first publish a substantive rule in “proposed” (draft) form and the public must be given 30 days to comment before the regulation is finally adopted.
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