Will DACA Applications Accelerate in Wake of Election?

A recent Migration Policy Institute report estimates as many as 1.7 million people will qualify for deferred action, but to date only a small fraction of that number have applied. That may be because there is a minimum age of 15 to submit an application and many who have not applied will eventually do so when they are old enough. But the anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that many have been fearful that if President Obama lost reelection, filing for DACA could lead to problems in a Romney Administration. On the other hand, we also were hearing from people who were rushing applications to have filed before the election based on the assumption that those with pending applications would be protected and new applicants frozen out. Time will tell, of course, whether this anecdotal evidence reflected a trend or not.