Emory is among a group of 17 leading universities urging the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to support students who are part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program. 

Established in 2012, DACA allows certain individuals who entered the United States as undocumented immigrants before the age of 16 to request deferred action from removal proceedings for renewable two-year periods. 

The universities, all of which admit DACA students, take issue with the Department of Homeland Security’s Sept. 5, 2017, memorandum rescinding the DACA program.

“To achieve their ambitious goals of advancing knowledge and transforming our society, schools must be able to identify and educate the very best students, and those students must be able to work after graduation. Ending DACA unjustly sidelines a discrete group of students,” the universities argue in an amicus brief filed April 11 in a DACA case that is before the Second Circuit on appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. 

In addition to Emory, the brief is signed by Brown University, California Institute of Technology, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, Stanford University, University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University and Yale University.

Last fall, Emory joined 18 other universities in filing a similar brief supporting DACA students in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division.