More than 117,000 students have received extensions through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to legally live and study in the United States, according to the University of California.
The renewals come after University of California President Janet Napolitano sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Sept. 2017 after President Donald Trump's repeal of the DACA program. The suit claims that the repeal of the program violates students' rights.
An injunction was granted by U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup in January that required the DHS to continue processing DACA renewal applications through the end of June as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reviews the case.
The DACA program allows children brought to the country illegally to become eligible for a work permit that is good for at least two years. The program does not provide a pathway for citizenship.
The UC said the injunction has benefited 117,446 students who need the program to attend college in the U.S. The original lawsuit called Trump's repeal "nothing more than unreasoned executive whim."
"Our efforts on behalf of our DACA students and the hundreds of thousands of other DACA recipients throughout the country are far from over," Napolitano said in a statement.
According to the UC, three federal judges in San Francisco, New York and Washington D.C. have found the DACA repeal "arbitrary and capricious."
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Napolitano headed the DHS from 2009 to 2013.
