Obama launches DACA, shielding 800,000 young immigrants from deportation

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) on June 15, 2012, providing renewable two-year protection from deportation for undocumented immigrants who arrived as children, had no serious criminal record, and met education or military service requirements. DACA was an exercise of prosecutorial discretion, not a legislative grant of status, and provided no path to citizenship. The program removed hundreds of thousands of potential immigration court cases from the active docket while leaving the structural backlog unsolved.