A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to begin accepting new applicants for the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, restoring it in full for the first time since President Donald Trump moved to end it in 2017.

Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York ordered the administration to post a notice alerting the public that it will begin accepting DACA applications from people who qualify for the program and are not already involved. He also directed the government to restore DACA status renewals to last for two years.

The Trump administration is likely to appeal the ruling, though those efforts will almost certainly be abandoned after President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in. Biden had pledged to restore the DACA program, which protects immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, and to help status recipients.

Trump moved to end the Obama-era program early in his term but was ultimately blocked from doing so last summer by the Supreme Court. While the challenge wound its way through the legal system, the administration was allowed to refuse new DACA applicants. After the Supreme Court's decision in June, acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf issued a new memo directing his agency to continue to decline new applications and outlining that renewals of status would only last for a year instead of the previous two years.

Wolf's memo prompted immediate court challenges. The order Friday comes after Garaufis ruled last month that Wolf did not have the power to enact the changes outlined in his DACA memo. The judge determined that Wolf was improperly appointed as acting homeland security secretary.

The Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency, found in August that Wolf was illegally appointed to his role, spurring a flurry of lawsuits from immigration advocates challenging Wolf's actions as acting secretary. Homeland Security at the time vigorously pushed back against the GAO report.