Here’s how latest U.S. court ruling impacts Central California DACA recipients
Last week’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit against the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration policy was not unexpected given the court’s history with the program, which has been tied in legal battles since President Donald Trump tried to end it during his first presidency.
The federal appeals court dealt a setback to the DACA policy by ruling it unlawful, though U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will continue processing DACA renewals for current recipients.
While the court ruling upheld a status quo that has been in place in recent years, the future of the DACA program remains uncertain.
Matias Bernal, executive director of the Fresno-based Education & Leadership Foundation, a nonprofit providing immigration services to recipients of the DACA program in the Central Valley, said the Jan. 17 rulling was disappointing, “but we were not surprised.”
“We expected such a ruling based on where it was located, and the fact that it’s been the same district court that ruled DACA unconstitutional a couple of years ago,” said Bernal, a DACA recipient since 2013.
The court’s ruling is the latest chapter in the long-running litigation challenging the DACA program.
The district court found that Texas still has standing to challenge DACA and declared the program as unlawful. However, USCIS will continue to process renewals for DACA beneficiaries at this time.
The ruling leaves the DACA program on hold for new applicants.
While the ruling stated that it was going to focus on the impacts on Texas, DACA advocates said they don’t know exactly what that looks like as of this moment.
“We are going to have to wait and see the implications that comes after that,” Bernal said.
In 2021, a district court held that Texas has standing to challenge DACA and called the DACA program unlawful. The court halted the program and barred the federal government from approving any new DACA applications, but allowed those who had already received their DACA status to renew.
More than 150,000 undocumented Californians benefit from the DACA program.
More than 800,000 people have had DACA at one time or another since the program’s creation creation in 2012. About 530,000 undocumented immigrants in the country, often referred to as Dreamers, maintain their DACA protections.
Bernal, who has been open about what’s it’s like to live under the constant uncertainty of deportation as a DACA recipient, said “we’re very much in the status quo.”
“We hope that the Supreme Court will take the case and will hopefully overturn that,” Bernal said.
DACA recipients are still able to apply to renew their status. Bernal encouraged recipients to renew if their work permit expires within a year or less. Renewals of these applications take an average of four months, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website.
DACA, created in 2012 by former President Barack Obama through an executive order, protects undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children from deportation and provides them with work authorization and social security numbers.
The program’s future, though, is uncertain. Trump has vowed to pursue mass deportations and end policies such as DACA and birthright citizenship during his second term.
In 2019, the court sided with DACA recipients and found that the Trump administration failed to provide a reasoned explanation for ending the program.
“The conservative 5th Circuit also made clear in its ruling the deep value of DACA by highlighting that ending the policy would do substantial harm to DACA recipients,” said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, a bipartisan political organization based in Washington, D.C. “As the court ruled Texas had only shown harm to itself, this ruling does not put a nationwide injunction in place on DACA.”
“No one should have to live their life from court decision to court decision, nor in two-year increments,” Schulte said. “DACA has transformed the lives of so many. It is long past time for DACA recipients, and so many others, to have a pathway to citizenship.”
This story was originally published January 23, 2025 at 12:40 PM with the headline "Here’s how latest U.S. court ruling impacts Central California DACA recipients."
