Applications

WASHINGTON — For the first time in four years, the federal government plans to begin processing initial applications for DACA, the Obama-era program that grants deportation protection and work permits to immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.

The move, outlined in a proposal Monday by the Justice Department, would reopen DACA to first-time applicants in every state except Texas. The proposal was filed in response to an ongoing lawsuit in U.S. district court in Brownsville, Tex.

According to the filing, Texas residents who already have DACA could continue receiving protection from deportation but would no longer qualify for employment authorization.

Lawsuits over DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, have been ongoing since President Trump moved to end the program during his first term.

Under the government’s proposal, DACA recipients who move into Texas would risk losing their legal ability to work, while moving out of Texas could allow them to resume qualifying for a two-year work permit.

The proposal is pending a final decision by U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen.

“These proposals do not limit DHS from undertaking any future lawful changes to DACA,” the filing states.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.

Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, deputy director of federal advocacy for United We Dream, said misinformation was circulating Tuesday on social media.

“We’ve seen a lot of folks saying initial applications will start right away. That’s not true,” she said. “The status quo stays. If you are a DACA recipient right now, even in Texas, if you can renew you should renew as soon as possible because then you have another two years.”

Other advocacy groups, such as the nonprofit Dreamers2gether, urged DACA recipients and hopeful applicants to leave Texas and file a change of address form with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

More than 525,000 immigrants are currently enrolled in DACA. Texas follows California in the ranking of states with the highest number of program enrollees, according to USCIS.

To qualify, applicants must prove they came to the U.S. before they turned 16 and have graduated from high school or were honorably discharged from the military. Applicants also cannot have serious criminal records.

But for years the program has sat in a state of uncertainty, stoking anxiety for many recipients, amid court battles that stopped applications from being processed and left many younger people who would have aged into qualifying for DACA instead vulnerable to deportation.

In this first term, Trump attempted to shut down the program, but the Supreme Court concluded in 2020 that his administration had acted improperly. The court did not rule on the program’s legality.

Because of the court battle, the program has been closed to new applicants since 2021, though current recipients could still renew their work permits.

Los Angeles resident Atziri Peña, 27, runs a clothing company called Barrio Drive that donates proceeds toward helping DACA recipients renew their applications.

Peña, who also has DACA, said she knows many people in Texas who are thinking about moving out of state. The latest news is another example of how the immigration system breaks families apart, she said.

“A lot of us who are DACA recipients, we don’t necessarily know what it was like to be undocumented before DACA, so most of us have careers that we won’t be able to continue,” Peña said.

United We Dream has recorded at least 19 current DACA recipients detained by immigration agents in recent months. In one case in Texas, immigration authorities have kept Catalina “Xochitl” Santiago detained despite an immigration judge saying she cannot be deported.

“It’s a way of making sure she can’t renew her DACA and then she becomes deportable,” said Macedo do Nascimento. In her view, the Department of Homeland Security’s attitude toward DACA recipients lately has diminished the protections it offers.

“The bigger picture here is DHS is moving onto a new policy on DACA anyway — without having to go through the courts, the rulemaking process or taking DACA away altogether,” she said. “They’re really trying to end the program piece by piece, recipient by recipient.”

Even so, immigrants across the country are looking forward to applying for DACA for the first time.

“While we could still get detained, it’s a little bit of a sense of safety and hope,” Peña said. “I have heard of people who are just waiting for DACA to reopen. But let’s see what happens and let’s hope they don’t use this as a way to catch more of us.”

Move part of broader immigration crackdown as ruling Labour Party comes under pressure from hard-right Reform UK party.

The United Kingdom’s Labour government has said it is suspending a scheme enabling registered refugees to bring family members into the country amid soaring support for the far right in opinion polls.

UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced on Monday that she was “temporarily” suspending new applications to the refugee family reunion route as the government draws up new rules set to be introduced by spring next year.

“The system has to be controlled and managed based on fair and properly enforced rules, not chaos and exploitation driven by criminal smuggler gangs,” she said.

Under the current system, an asylum seeker granted indefinite leave to remain in the country can bring in children under the age of 18, and their partner if they can prove they have been in a relationship for at least two years.

Cooper told Parliament that increasing numbers of family reunion applications had placed pressure on housing across the country, with many applying to bring relatives over within about a month. One of the planned reforms would mean longer waiting periods before applying.

Refugee charities blasted the move. Safe Passage, which supports child refugees, accused the government of “giving in to far-right pressure”, saying that it would leave children fleeing war and persecution in countries like Afghanistan, Sudan or Iran “trapped in danger”.

🚨 SHOCKING: The UK Government has temporarily suspended all new refugee family reunion applications.

The consequences will be devastating for the children we support, who’ve now been stripped of almost every safe route to join their loved ones. pic.twitter.com/YErszylNft

— Safe Passage International🧡 (@safepassageint) September 1, 2025

Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “Far from stopping people taking dangerous journeys to cross the Channel, these changes will only push more desperate people into the arms of smugglers in an effort to reunite with loved ones.”

Far right whipping up anger

Cooper announced the move as Labour faced a bumpy return to Parliament after a summer break that has seen anti-immigration protesters repeatedly targeting hotels housing asylum seekers in various parts of England – most recently in Epping, northeast of London, on Sunday.

Facing pressure from Nigel Farage’s hard-right Reform UK party, which has whipped up anger over people arriving in small boats over the English Channel from France, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Monday that he will accelerate plans to empty the asylum hotels.

Accused of moving too slowly, the government has been eager to demonstrate it is tackling a problem left by previous Conservative-led administrations by brokering return deals with other nations and speeding up the processing of asylum claims.

Cooper said that the UK and France will start implementing a “one in, one out” pilot scheme later this month, with the former sending refugees and asylum seekers to the latter in exchange for approved applicants.

“Applications have also been opened for the reciprocal legal route, with the first cases under consideration subject to strict security checks,” she said, adding that “family groups” would be prioritised under the deal with France.

The government will also establish a new independent body to deal with appeals as tens of thousands of people in asylum accommodation are currently awaiting a decision, Cooper said.

She added that the current average waiting time for appeals to be heard is 54 weeks.

The announcement marks the latest restriction imposed by the Trump administration on travellers from Africa.

The United States has announced a pause on all routine visa applications for citizens of Zimbabwe.

The State Department said in a statement on Thursday that the US embassy in Zimbabwe would pause all routine visa services starting from Friday “while we address concerns with the Government of Zimbabwe”.

The embassy described the measure as temporary and part of the Trump administration’s efforts to “prevent visa overstay and misuse”.

Most diplomatic and official visas would be exempt from the pause, the US said.

The US has enforced new travel restrictions on citizens from several African countries under President Donald Trump’s broader immigration enforcement policies.

In June, the US put in place travel bans on citizens from 12 countries, seven of them in Africa.

It increased restrictions on seven other nations, three of them African.

The US has also demanded that 36 countries, the majority of them in Africa, improve their vetting of travellers or face a ban on their citizens visiting the United States.

Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia were all on that list of 36 countries asked to improve their citizens’ travel documentation and take steps to address the status of their nationals who are in the US illegally.

“The Trump Administration is protecting our nation and our citizens by upholding the highest standards of national security and public safety through our visa process,” the US State Department said on Thursday.

The announcement came days after the US unveiled a pilot project requiring citizens of two other African countries, Malawi and Zambia, to pay a bond of up to $15,000 for tourist or business visas.

The bond will be forfeited if the applicant stays in the US after their visa expires.

The new bond policy announced on Tuesday requires Malawians and Zambians to pay bonds of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 as part of their application for a tourist or business visa to the US.

Under the programme, citizens of those countries must also arrive and depart at one of three airports: Boston’s Logan International Airport, New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport or Dulles International Airport near Washington, DC.

The visa bond pilot programme will start on August 20, the State Department said.

June 7 (UPI) — China has agreed to fast-track approvals for the shipment of rare earth minerals to the United States and some European Union nations.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke Thursday about easing trade tensions.

On Saturday, China’s Minister Seceary Wang Wentao said his nation is “willing to establish a green channel for qualified applications to speed up approval.” Details weren’t given, including the speed of the process and which EU nations are included.

China controls 90% of the global processing of rare earth minerals. Major deposits also are found in the United States, Australia and Russia. Smaller amounts are in Canada, India, South Africa and Southeast Asia.

Rare earth minerals are in the Earth’s crust, making them difficult to extract. They include lanthanide, scandium and yttrium, all on the Periodic Table of Elements. Some major minerals that contain rare earth elements are bastnasite, monazite, loparite and laterite clays.

The first rare-earth mineral was discovered in 1787 — gadolinite, a black mineral composed of cerium, yttrium, iron, silicon and other elements.

U.S. needs rare earth minerals

The minerals are critical to American industries and defense, including use in cars and fighter jets. Batteries contain the minerals

Trump posted on Truth Social on Thursday “there should no longer be any questions respecting the complexity of rare Earth products.”

On April 29, the United States and Ukraine created a Reconstruction Investment Fund that includes rare earth mineral rights in the European nation. Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky were originally set to sign the minerals deal on Feb. 28, but the plan was scrapped after a tense exchange between them in the Oval Office in which Trump accused him of “gambling with World War III.”

The United States wants access to more than 20 raw materials in Ukraine, including some non-minerals, such as oil and natural gas, as well as titanium, lithium, graphite and manganese.

The Chinese commerce ministry confirmed some applications have been approved without specifying industries covered.

Some Chinese suppliers have recently received six-month export licenses, the American Chamber of Commerce in China said Friday, but it noted that there is a backlog of license applications.

In a survey of member companies conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce in China late week, 75% say their stock would run out within three months, CNN reported.

Jens Eskelund, the chamber president, said member companies were “still struggling” with the situation.

“I hadn’t realized just how important this rare earth card was before. Now the U.S. side is clearly anxious and eager to resolve this issue,” he said a video on Thursday. “But of course, we’ll link this issue to others — the U.S. is restricting China on chips and jet engines, then China certainly has every reason to make use of this card.

“As for whether China will change its rare earth export control policy, that probably still needs to be negotiated in more detail,” Jin added.

Trump said Xi and himself “straightened out” some points related to rare earth magnets, calling it “very complex stuff.”

The U.S. federal government said China had reneged on its promise made in Geneva on May 12.

Delegations from Beijing and Washington plan to meet in Great Britain on Monday for trade negotiations.

At the height of tariff war, China had imposed export restrictions on some minerals on April 4. Trump two days planned a 120% “reciprocal” tax on top of 25% levy on Chinese goods.

But one week later it paused the bigger tariffs, including on other countries for 90 days.

European nations’ needs

China’s commerce ministry pledged to address the EU’s concerns and establish a “green channel” for eligible applications to expedite approvals. He went to Brussels, Belgium, earlier this week and met with European Union’s trade commissioner, Maros Sefcovic.

It’s a problem for China and the EU.

Sefcovic said the pause was slowing deliveries for manufacturers of a wide range of items from cars to washing machines.

Wang urged the EU to “take effective measures to facilitate, safeguard and promote compliant trade of high-tech products to China.”

On Friday, the European Chamber, a Beijing lobby group, warned progress had “not been sufficient” to prevent severe supply chain disruptions for many companies.