But on Tuesday department lawyers informed Judge
Hanen they may have left him with a wrong impression when they said they hadn’t carried out any of the president’s new policies.
Mr. Obama’s Nov. 20 announcement offered a number of different benefits to illegal immigrants, including expanding eligibility for his 2012 amnesty for Dreamers and boosting the amount of time he was granting an amnesty form deportation and permits for legal work from two years to three years.
While the administration hadn’t begun collecting applications under the expanded eligibility, it had awarded tens of thousands of three-year permits to applicants who had qualified as Dreamers under the original rules from 2012, administration lawyers told
the court.
USCIS has told immigrant rights activists it has stopped and is only granting two-year renewals now, in a tacit admission that it believes Judge
Hanen’s injunction affects all parts of Mr. Obama’s November announcement.