After their work permits expired, an immigration attorney near San Diego was fired and a nurse in the East Bay area was placed on unpaid leave.
Both rely on work permits and legal protections provided by Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program created by President Obama in 2012 for immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. But recent processing delays at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services are leaving many DACA recipients vulnerable to arrest and deportation as their two-year work permits expire.
“It is definitely an attack on the program,” said lawyer María Fernanda Madrigal. “My first thought was, 'Oh, they're so smart. They couldn't end the program through the courts, so this is what they're doing.'”
DACA recipient María Fernanda Madrigal, at her home in Escondido, is an immigration attorney who was laid off after her work permit expired.
(Sandy Huffaker/for The Times)
In recent years, average processing times for DACA renewals have remained below two months. Now, most cases are resolved within 3.5 months, according to Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The agency did not explain what is causing the processing delays. Spokesman Zach Kahler wrote in a statement that “under President Trump's leadership, USCIS is safeguarding the American people by more thoroughly screening and investigating all aliens.”
DACA does not confer any type of legal status in this country, he said.
During his first term, Trump tried unsuccessfully to rescind DACA.
This time, his administration has simply weakened its profits.
Last year, Department of Homeland Security officials began urging DACA recipients to self-deport. The Department of Health and Human Services made DACA recipients ineligible for health insurance through Obamacare.
And last month, a precedent-setting decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals, which will apply to immigration judges across the country, said that having DACA is not enough to protect someone from deportation.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said ICE arrested 650 DACA recipients between Jan. 20, 2025 and April 30, nearly 90% of whom had been charged or convicted of a crime. The spokesman did not say how many have been deported.
DACA recipient Javier Díaz (center) is greeted by his neighbors, including Martha Avelar, right, in South Los Angeles after returning home from a detention center in Texas in July 2025.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
But in a February letter to U.S. senators, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the agency had deported 86 DACA recipients between Jan. 1 and Nov. 19, 2025. Federal judges ordered the agency to return some, including María de Jesús Estrada Juárez, a Sacramento mother who was deported a day after her green card interview.
Lawmakers are expressing alarm that DACA's promise of protection is being undermined.
Last month, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee held a forum on the Trump administration's “all-out assault on DACA.” The forum included Santa Ana Police Chief Robert Rodriguez, who testified that he had been forced to fire a police officer because his work permit renewal was not processed in time.
Last week, House members from California's Central Valley, including Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford), sent a letter to leaders at Homeland Security and Citizenship and Immigration Services, urging them to expedite DACA processing.
“Our offices have seen a substantial increase in constituent cases involving pending renewals, with many remaining unresolved for more than six months,” the letter continues. “These extended processing times are creating avoidable hardships for our communities and our economy.”
California has more than a quarter of the country's roughly 500,000 DACA recipients, according to figures from Citizenship and Immigration Services. On average they are 31 years old.
To qualify for DACA, applicants had to pass background checks and meet certain educational or employment requirements.
During a press conference before the DACA forum last month, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) reflected on the day in June 2012 when DACA applications first opened. He said parents of young immigrants asked him if it was safe for their children to enroll in the program, which required admitting their lack of legal and domicile status.
“Are you sure the government won't use that information against us at some point?” He remembered what they had told him. “I told him, 'Follow the law exactly as it is written and announced in the executive order, and we will support you. Just believe in us to do it.'”
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), foreground, speaks during a Homeland Security oversight hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March.
(J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press)
“Well, I didn't anticipate the current president or what he's doing now,” Durbin continued.
Sarah Krieger, a former Citizenship and Immigration Services official who is now a senior policy advisor at the National Immigration Law Center, said the processing delays were due, in part, to the agency temporarily halting an automated system for processing DACA and other applications.
Krieger said “streamlined case processing” was disabled about a month after Trump took office last year, to audit whether each process had sufficient security controls. The automated system was turned back on a couple of months later, but was modified to include more manual security checks. Krieger left the agency last July.
Shutting down the automated system was “a deliberate choice that does not increase national security,” he said. “All it does is slow things down.”
Citizenship and Immigration Services recommends that applicants submit their paperwork and pay the $555 fee between 120 and 150 days before their benefits expire.
Among those who did so were two nurses who work for Kaiser Permanente in the Bay Area. Both requested anonymity out of concern about their immigration status.
One of the nurses, who came to the United States from the Philippines as a young child, said she applied for renewal on December 1. His work authorization expired on April 15.
Kaiser granted her a 30-day unpaid leave, after which she would be fired. His work permit was eventually renewed, but only after Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and two other members of Congress lobbied the federal government on his behalf.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) speaks during a press conference about the DACA program on May 12 in front of the U.S. Capitol.
(Graeme Sloan/Getty Images)
Padilla said his office has received applications from hundreds of DACA recipients this year.
Another Kaiser nurse, who also submitted her renewal paperwork in December, is still waiting. He has been on unpaid leave for almost a month.
The nurse, who is from South America, said a Citizenship and Immigration Services official told her her renewal could take up to 10 months to process.
The nurse is pregnant and she and her husband just bought a house. Losing your job would mean losing your health care and maternity leave benefits.
“I have spent years caring for other people in my community, paying taxes and contributing to the health care system,” she said. “I worked during COVID and it's heartbreaking to feel like you're dismissed so easily.”
Another DACA recipient, Elsa Sánchez, 35, of Georgia, has maintained DACA status since 2012 and says she always follows the recommendation to submit the renewal application at least 120 days before the expiration date.
For the last three renewals, he said, it was approved in one or two weeks. This time, his work permit and DACA expired on April 1, more than four months after he applied.
Elsa Sánchez, whose work permit expired due to delays in DACA renewal, at her home in Atlanta.
(Emilie Mégnien / Associated Press)
The healthcare IT company where Sanchez works as a senior customer success manager allowed him to take a 60-day unpaid leave, but said he would have to terminate his employment afterward.
Sánchez's unpaid leave was set to expire on June 1. On May 20, he received notification that his DACA renewal had finally been approved. But by then Sanchez, a single mother, had had to withdraw funds from the college savings account of her 19-year-old daughter, who attends a local university. He put the money towards almost $2,000 in rent and food.
“I feel very relieved and grateful,” she said in an Instagram video announcing the news. “I know many of us are still affected by these delays. I wish I could share my approval with all of you and that we were all celebrating today.”
Others have also taken to social media to share their experiences and exchange resources. Madrigal, the fired lawyer, went on to make daily videos. On Tuesday he shared “day 35 of unemployment.”
“Some days feel like big emotions and uncertainty,” he wrote. “Other days look like walks, toddler activities, making dinner and ending the night with toast. Trying to find joy and normalcy in the midst of it all.”
