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Immigrant advocacy and legal aid groups sued the Trump administration last week over delays in renewals for recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, a temporary immigration status that provides work authorization and protection from deportation, NBC News reported.
Roughly 506,000 individuals have DACA status nationwide, including nearly 28% who live in California. Across the nation, DACA recipients have been experiencing prolonged renewals, EdSource found. If DACA status lapses, recipients immediately lose their authorization to work, threatening their livelihoods and putting them at higher risk of detention or deportation.
Renewals must occur every two years, and because of the delays, thousands have had their status lapse, NBC News reported.
DACA recipients are seeking answers concerning the federal government’s delays.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, processes DACA renewal applications. Data from the USCIS shows that the median processing time had risen from one month in late 2023 to more than two months by early 2024. Advocates and DACA recipients told EdSource the timeline has more than doubled, now stretching over five months.
The online system provides few details beyond “processing” or “approved,” and attempts to get updates from federal officials often yield little information.
Two legal aid organizations filed a lawsuit Thursday in the Northern District of California, demanding data on renewals, including current average processing times, according to NBC News.
The groups filed information requests on May 7 asking USCIS and immigration enforcement officials why DACA recipients who applied for renewal around October and November were still waiting, NBC News reported.
The groups sued after officials missed a June deadline to respond.
The delays have stopped a 26-year-old medical school graduate from starting his residency in anesthesiology while his DACA renewal is pending, according to the complaint.
Recent graduates aren’t the only ones who have been or may be impacted.
Thousands of California educators, an estimated 6,784 across K-12 and higher education systems, have DACA status, according to the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education.
“For the years that DACA has been in place, renewals have been fairly reliable. But now, for so many months, we’re seeing these delays cause people to fall out of status — that means that folks are losing their jobs; they’re losing their ability to support their families,” said Hillary Li, an attorney with the Justice Action Center, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of East Bay Sanctuary and the Immigration Institute of the Bay Area. “They’re also losing their protection against deportation,” she told NBC News.
