More than 130,000 DACA applications made their way through the mail before the Oct. 5 deadline. This month, it came to light that at least 4,000 of those applications were rejected for missing the deadline.

Now, just a reminder here, the Deferred Action for Early Childhood Arrivals program protects some immigrant youth from deportation and allows them to legally work and attend school in the U.S.

But the program is being phased out, and that Oct. 5 deadline was the last chance to renew.

Reporting from the New York Times revealed a mail slowdown may have affected some of the rejected applications, causing them to arrive in some cases just one day late, even though they were postmarked well in advance of the deadline.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has since said it will accept DACA renewal requests from individuals who re-submit with individualized proof that the request was originally mailed in a timely manner and that the cause for delay was the result of a mail error.

Josh Rosenthal is a staff attorney for the National Immigration Law Center.