Claudia submitted her immigration renewal six months ago. It should have been processed in weeks. Now, her work authorization has lapsed, her career is stalled, and she cannot say when her status will be restored.
She is one of hundreds of thousands trapped in a growing processing backlog that advocates say is deliberately designed to dismantle the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program from within.
Claudia moved to the United States at age four and has maintained legal status as a Dreamer under DACA since the program's creation in 2012. The program protects immigrants brought to the US as children from deportation. For 14 years, renewal took a few weeks. Under the current administration, the timeline has stretched to six months or longer.
"It feels like a personal attack," said Claudia, who requested anonymity due to concerns about retaliation. "I renewed on time, completed my biometrics, followed every rule, but I'm still waiting to hear back."
The employment consequences are immediate and severe. Cesar, another DACA holder, lost his job in human resources when his work authorization expired while awaiting renewal. He now sells burritos on the street to pay bills. "I feel like I lose everything," he said. "We grew up here, we built a community here, and we built our lives here. I lost my dream job."
More than 500,000 active DACA recipients live across the United States. The program requires applicants to have entered the country before June 15, 2007, to be in school or hold a high school diploma, and to have no criminal record.
The backlog arrives alongside new restrictions. The Trump administration has proposed rules that would require DACA recipients' employers to use E-Verify and has already banned them from obtaining commercial driver's licenses. Immigration advocates describe these moves as part of a broader strategy to push beneficiaries out of the workforce.
"DACA delays are pushing recipients out of the workforce, jeopardizing the stability of working families, employers and local economies," said Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, deputy director of advocacy and campaigns at United We Dream. She characterized the administration's approach as "a quiet unraveling of temporary programs across the board" designed as "a mass delegalization effort to push out millions of people who have built careers, families, and homes here."
Trump attempted to terminate DACA during his first term but was blocked by the Supreme Court in 2020. Litigation against the program continues, and advocates say the current strategy bypasses court action by making the program unworkable.
The administration has also increased immigration enforcement targeting DACA holders. Hundreds have been arrested by federal immigration authorities over the past year, with several deported. The White House claims it targets immigrants with criminal records, but analysis found that 77 percent of DACA recipients who entered deportation proceedings in 2025 had no criminal conviction.
Gaby Pacheco, president and CEO of TheDream.US, a nonprofit offering scholarships to undocumented students, warned that the delays amount to punishment without due process. "The idea that people who have spent years contributing to their communities could lose everything because of bureaucratic delays and political attacks is both cruel and deeply damaging to America's future," Pacheco said.
USCIS spokesperson Zach Kahler responded to criticism by noting that "DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country" and that the agency "is safeguarding the American people by more thoroughly screening and vetting all aliens."
Immigration advocates point to the Dream Act, a bipartisan bill in Congress, as the only lasting solution. The legislation would grant DACA recipients permanent residential status and a pathway to citizenship, removing them from the cycle of renewals altogether.
Cesar described the waiting period as an "emotional rollercoaster" between hope and despair. "We have now lost our jobs, we have lost our security," he said. "We don't feel safe being in public. We had reached the American Dream, but suddenly it vanished."
Author James Rodriguez: "Processing delays that force people to choose between their careers and their immigration status are not administrative inconvenience, they are policy by design, and the damage spreads far beyond the individuals waiting in limbo."
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