This article is offered for purposes of general information and does not create any attorney-client relationship.
DACA currently remains in force for those who already have DACA status. However, the immigration service will not process new DACA applications. You also can and should renew your DACA, but if your DACA has been expired for more than a year, your application will be treated as a new application rather than a renewal, and it will not be processed.
DACA stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. DACA allows certain undocumented immigrants to the US to be protected from deportation and to obtain work permits. It can be renewed every two years. However, DACA does not provide a path to permanent residency or citizenship.
In order to qualify for DACA, a person had to have been born on June 16, 1981 or later; lived in the United States since June 15, 2007; have no other lawful immigration status; have no felony or serious misdemeanor offense on their record; and have completed high school or been honorably discharged from the US the armed forces.
DACA is an executive policy that was implemented by President Obama during the summer of 2012. At the time, Obama was in the middle of a reelection campaign, and immigration reform protesters were an important political force. In my opinion, DACA played an important role in Obama's successful bid for reelection, since he had relatively few other positive policy achievements to point to.
DACA was implemented as a response to the movement for a DREAM Act, a proposed piece of legislation that would have given even more protection, including a path to permanent residency, for mostly the same people covered by DACA. DACA is much weaker than the proposed DREAM Act. But it suffers from another weakness: It was implemented by executive order rather than by a law passed through Congress.
Immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, play an indispensible role in the US economy. If anyone were to successfully deport all undocumented immigrants from the US, the economic consequences would be catastrophic. All the main politicians in the US are aware of this fact, and anything they say to the contary is a cynical lie.
Nevertheless, attacks on immigrants are an important line of demagogic political attack used by the Republican Party.
The 2014, governors of 26 US states, including Texas, filed suit against the US government, claiming that DACA is illegal. The basis of the suit is that DACA was implemented by presidential order rather than by a law. This lawsuit has been ongoing since that time. During that period, neither President Obama nor President Biden prioritized passing a DACA law through Congress.
In July of 2021, Andrew Hanen, a federal district judge in Texas, ruled that DACA is illegal. He entered an order barring the federal government from accepting any new DACA applications. The order did allow current DACA recipients to continue to have DACA status and to renew their DACA status while his order was under appeal.
The court which is likely to ultimately decide the issue is the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is now fully controlled by very rightwing justices. It is therefore very likely that DACA will eventually be canceled by the Supreme Court unless Congress passes a law implementing DACA. At this time (March of 2023), with Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, and with the Democratic Party never having prioritized a DACA bill, prospects for DACA to be saved by Congress appear grim.
For now, if you are a DACA recipient, it is still in force, and you can renew it. You should file to renew your DACA status at least 120 days before it expires. If you do not file to renew your DACA before it expires, you can still renew, provided you file within one year of the date your DACA expired. If you file more than a year after your DACA expires, DACA requires that the application be treated as a new application. Because of the Texas court order, the immigration service will not be able to process your request.
It is worth noting that DACA exists as a result of the struggle of immigrants for their rights. It is a product of the DREAMer movement, and a product of the broader immigration movement of the early 2000s, symbolized by the Megamarchas. The best hope for further immigration reform that could benefit DACA recipients and others is for the immigrant rights movement to revive.