Changes to DACA and Deportation Protections
Deferred action is a temporary form of protection used by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to delay the deportation of certain individuals. It does not guarantee that someone will not be deported; instead, it provides certain rights and places them at the bottom of the deportation list. People granted deferred action can apply for a work permit, allowing them to work in the U.S. legally.
In recent years, deferred action has faced changes that have particularly affected immigration pathways like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) status.
Changes to DACA
As of Jan. 17, 2025 USCIS is not processing new DACA applications, which means that new applications are not being granted. This freeze in new applications does not affect DACA renewals, which are still being accepted and processed.
DACA provides people who entered the U.S. as children with some level of protection from deportation and the ability to legally work. According to the American Immigration Council, it started on June 15, 2012 and requires recipients to renew their DACA every two years.
“If you actually look at what announces DACA, it’s just a government memo. It’s just the president telling the Department of Homeland Security, this is how I want you to use the resources that we have,” said Karla Rodriguez Beltran, a Ph.D candidate at UC Davis. “Because these people are not to be prioritized for deportation, instead, they’ll be given deferred action, so then we can focus on these other people.”
According to the USCIS report of active DACA recipients as of March 31, 2025, of the over half a million current DACA recipients roughly 28% live in California.
Soni Chaturvedi, a legal fellow from the UC Davis Labor and Community Center of the Greater Capital Region, said that the government does not notify DACA recipients of changes.
Changes to SIJ
SIJ provides individuals under the age of 21 in California, who have experienced abuse, neglect or abandonment by a parent, with a pathway to obtain their green card.
In 2022, USCIS began a policy where deferred action was automatically granted to SIJs while they waited for their green card, a process that can take years. On April 10, USCIS announced that it will be canceling the 2022 policy.
The announcement stated that starting May 10, 2026 all SIJs will be required to apply for deferred action separately from their application for a green card.
“There’s a separate application that you could file, but that has its own risk, like the notice to appear. If an application is denied, then someone could be placed in removal proceedings,” said immigration attorney, Tania Dominguez Narcisco.
USCIS also has the ability to terminate deferred action and work permits at any time.
“The ways in which DACA continues to change and how much more difficult it is for people to either apply for the first time, if not at all, or to renew is not just an attack on immigrants, it’s an attack on workers,” Chaturvedi said.
