President Trump's administration officially canceled an immigration program that was proposed during the Obama-era. The program was called the "Deferred Action for Parents of Americans" program, commonly known as "DAPA."
DAPA was designed to protect the parents of children that are legal residents from deportation, if they met a certain criteria. However, the program never was fully implemented.
"It looked like it was some sort of actual program that was in place, and in reality, it wasn't," immigration attorney Maurice Goldman said.
That's because 26 states, including Arizona, filed suit against the federal government, and a federal judge from Texas blocked it from happening.
Speaking to the current administration's decision to rollback on it:
"Rolling it back was more of just an action of -- it's just kind of like the final death knell in the coffin of DAPA," Goldman said.
On its website, the Department of Homeland Security explains the reason why it was rescinded: "Secretary Kelly considered a number of factors, including the nationwide injunction of the DAPA memorandum, the ongoing litigation, the fact that DAPA never took effect, and our new immigration enforcement priorities."
The immigration attorney explained in more detail that the goal of the program was to keep immigrant parents safe from deportation while also offering them a renewable, two-year work permit.
"DAPA would have -- based on some of the numbers i've seen -- benefited about 3.7 million individuals in the U.S. who are undocumented," he said.
