A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Friday to restore the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) that protects eligible immigrant youth who came to the United States when they were children from deportation.

Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn directed officials to open the program again to new applicants after 3 years.

Garaufis ordered the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to post a public notice by Monday.

The notice will have to state that the department will start accepting and adjudicating DACA petitions from immigrants who qualify for the program, but are not currently part of it, as reported by CBS News.

The judge also directed officials to grant approved applicants work permits that last for two years. The Trump administration has proposed a one-year period over the summer.

Around one million undocumented teen immigrants and young adults, who qualify for DACA on paper, could soon apply for the program following the judge's orders. This was according to the lawyers who sued the Trump administration.

One of the lawyers representing DACA beneficiaries and possible applicants, Karen Tumlin, lauded Friday's ruling.

Tumlin called on the government to stop its attacks on immigrant youth, instead of continuing to lose courtroom battle during the last days of the administration.

Tumlin said the ruling opens the door for more than a million immigrant youth who have been unfairly denied their chance to apply for DACA and secure their future in the country.

"Our brave plaintiffs have said from the beginning of this lawsuit that their home is here, and the court rightly recognized that today," Tumlin noted in the CBS News report.

No Comment

DHS and U.S. Citizenship Immigration Services representatives did not respond to the request to comment. A Justice Department spokeswoman also did not immediately respond to comment.

Garaufis' order comes after another ruling he ordered in November found that acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf did not have any legal authority to close DACA to new applicants.

Wolf did not also have any authority to shorten the validity period of the work permits and protections from deportation that the program's beneficiaries receive.

With this, Garaufis concluded that Wolf's appointment violated the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Garaufis was not the only federal judge who questioned the legality of Wolf's appointment.

Congress' investigative arm determined the appointment to be invalid in August. The Government Accountability Office was the agency responsible for the determination of the invalidity.

The findings of the agency also reported that DHS did not adequately follow the rules regarding the line of succession for the department's leadership.

End of DACA

The Trump administration ended DACA in September 2017, saying that the program represented an overreach of executive authority. However, the intended termination was put on hold by several government courts.

Early in June, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration had violated federal administrative law when trying to end the program. Wolf issued a memo in July, highlighting the new guidelines for DACA.

Garaufis set aside Wolf's directive, which included the ban on new applicants and limits on current protections and work permits.