This year marks the 14th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
This program has provided work authorization and relief from deportation for hundreds of thousands of people who immigrated to the U.S. as children and grew up here.
Fourteen years ago, DACA recipients did everything that was asked of them — coming forward, passing background checks and building real lives here.
Today, DACA recipients have been in the workforce for over a decade, supporting essential industries such as healthcare, education, technology and infrastructure — and contributing $76 billion to the U.S. economy annually. The program receives broad bipartisan support because the recipients follow the rules at every turn by renewing on time, declaring themselves and meeting every requirement.
The president himself said that “Dreamers” should “feel safe,” that he wants to “work with Democrats and Republicans to do something about the Dreamers” and that “many of these are middle-aged people now. They don’t even speak the language of their country.”
People are being forced out of the workforce
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
All this stands in stark contrast to the current experiences of DACA recipients. Renewal backlogs and mismanagement of the program are creating serious issues, forcing eligible recipients out of status and out of the workforce.
Take Elsa Sanchez, a Georgia resident and single mom, who has maintained DACA status since 2012 and has always followed the recommendation to submit the renewal application at least 120 days before the expiration date.
Sanchez was still waiting for approval on her application on April 1, four months after submitting her application. She was forced to take an unpaid leave of absence and risked losing her job if work authorization wasn’t reinstated before June 1.
Her application has since been approved, but not before Sanchez had to pull funds from the college savings account for her 19-year-old daughter, who is attending a local university.
Sanchez isn’t alone.
More than 260 DACA recipients have been detained, and at least 174 have been deported since the start of 2025. This follows a series of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services processing delays that are stripping recipients of work authorization and status, despite renewal submissions being made on time.
DACA recipients are more than just workers or statistics. Jose Contreras came to the United States at the age of 8. He first applied for DACA in 2014 and has renewed on time every two years since.
In January, Jose had active DACA status but was arrested by ICE agents on a routine immigration check and deported anyway. He has since been granted parole, rearrested and released in May — allowing him to finally meet his newborn son, Mateo, for the first time.
Two solutions to protect participants
There is an emerging pattern of quietly dismantling the DACA program piece by piece.
At the Latin American Association, we see this up close every day in Georgia. People in our legal clinics, our English classes and our emergency assistance programs are doing exactly what was asked of them and more, yet they are being targeted and made to fear for their legal status.
On the 14th anniversary of DACA, the administration has a clear and immediate directive.
- First: Direct Citizenship and Immigration Services to clear the renewal backlog now, so that no compliant recipient loses status because of a processing failure within the system they trusted.
- Second: Make good on the opening the president himself described — working across the aisle to give people who have spent their entire adult lives building this country the clear pathway to citizenship they have earned.
Dreamers have held up their end of the bargain for 14 years. It is time for Washington to hold up its.
Santiago Marquez is the chief executive officer of the Latin American Association, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering individuals and families through education, workforce development, immigration services and community engagement.
Send letters to the editor of 250 words or fewer with your name, city or town and contact information to letters@ajc.com.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
