A federal court decision allowing continued deportation protections for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients took effect this week.
Monse Montalvo, a Houston-area organizer with the immigrant advocacy group United We Dream, said the program could re-open for new recipients for the first time in years in light of the January ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which partly upheld a previous ruling by a district court judge in Houston. But DACA recipients in Texas might not receive permission to work in the state as the appellate court held that the parts of DACA pertaining to work authorization and recipients’ presence in the country were unlawful.
“This is basically a new format of DACA, and we don’t know how it’s going to work,” Montalvo said. “We’re hopeful that it won’t have any effects on folks that are doing their renewal.”
Since 2012, the DACA program has provided its recipients with protection from deportation and eligibility to request work authorization. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), deferred action does not provide lawful status.
In 2017, the administration of President Donald Trump announced an end to DACA. The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the attempt to end the program in 2020, but a federal judge in Houston then ruled DACA as unlawful in 2021. Any DACA recipients who applied to the program before July 16, 2021, have been protected from changes during ongoing litigation, and continue to have protection from deportation and eligibility to request work authorization.
Then in January this year, the Fifth Circuit ruled that protection from deportation was lawful, but work authorization and DACA recipients’ presence in the country was not. The latter part of the ruling was limited to Texas, with the case being sent back to Judge Andrew Hanen at the district court level. According to the American Immigration Council, Texas is the only state that’s proven in court that it’s incurred education and healthcare costs for DACA recipients.
The Trump administration has not publicly addressed the January ruling by the appellate court.
As of the court ruling, USCIS has been continuing to accept and process renewal requests. Initial requests are accepted but not processed at this time.
United We Dream is part of a national coalition known as Home is Here, which advocates for DACA recipients. In a statement, the coalition recommended that “individuals who are considering applying for the first time to exercise caution, speak to a trusted attorney first, and understand that there are no guarantees” under the Trump administration.
“We’re obviously just playing by ear to see what the course of action will be based on what Judge [Andrew] Hanen decides,” Montalvo said.
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