Photo by Stephen Leonardi of protest in support of immigrants
DACA renewals are taking far longer than the four-to-five-month window USCIS tells recipients to plan around, and some Dreamers are losing their jobs while their applications sit undecided.
Recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals are waiting longer for renewal decisions than at any point in the program’s history, and a growing number are watching their work permits expire before USCIS acts, according to a CBS News analysis published Oct. 8. The backlog of pending DACA renewals has more than quadrupled to over 125,000, CBS reported, while the number of people holding active DACA status fell 14 percent between September 2025 and June 30, 2026, to 436,350.
The timing is what makes this more than a paperwork story. DACA renewals were long one of the most predictable filings at USCIS, often approved in weeks. Recipients, employers and lawyers built their planning around that. When a two-year grant lapses now, the consequences arrive on a fixed date: the work permit ends, the employer has to stop the person from working, and the protection that kept the clock from running on unlawful presence stops as well.
The numbers behind the slowdown
- Weekly decisions: USCIS was deciding 4,500 to 6,000 DACA requests a week before November 2025, then fewer than 1,900 a week afterward, according to CBS’s analysis of data compiled by the Deportation Data Project through mid-February.
- Catch-up that did not clear the line: Decisions in April through June ran about four times the January-to-March pace, but the backlog stayed largely unchanged, CBS reported.
- Agency’s own benchmark: A USCIS spokesperson told CBS the agency decided 80 percent of applications within seven months of filing over the previous six months.
- Denials: The denial rate since the November slowdown was 1.1 percent through June, compared with 0.67 percent from 2013 until November, CBS found. Denials remain rare; delay is the main problem.
- Who is affected: Nearly half of DACA recipients live in California or Texas, and 82 percent were born in Mexico, according to CBS’s reading of USCIS data.
There is a gap between what USCIS tells the public and what the data show. The agency’s DACA webpage still says it adjudicates most renewals within 120 days and advises filing 120 to 150 days before expiration. The seven-month figure the agency itself gave CBS is well beyond that window, which means a recipient who follows the official advice to the letter can still lose work authorization. Long waits are not new: CBS noted renewals stretched to nearly five months in 2016 and past four months in 2021 and 2024. The difference this time is that waits have exceeded four months since June and, by CBS’s account, have not yet peaked.
Vetting, not a policy change, is the stated reason
USCIS has not announced any change to the DACA renewal rules themselves. Its explanation is about scrutiny. Spokesperson Zach Kahler told CBS that the agency has “placed a renewed emphasis on robust alien screening and vetting” and is eliminating prior-administration policies that he said put applicants’ convenience ahead of Americans’ safety. He also noted that DACA does not confer legal status. CBS reported that adjudicators were directed in April to resubmit some pending cases for enhanced FBI background checks, and earlier to review applicants’ social media for “anti-American” sentiment. A former USCIS official told CBS that some adjudicators are being moved into fraud and security roles, which would reduce the staff available to decide routine renewals.
DACA is not the only line that has grown. CBS found that between December 2024 and August 2026, pending work-permit applications rose about 60 percent and naturalization applications about 50 percent. That pattern is consistent with the agency’s account that the slowdown reflects how it now reviews cases across the board, rather than a step aimed only at DACA. Whatever the intent, the practical effect is the same: in a program that the courts have barred USCIS from replenishing with new applicants, the count of active recipients drops each time a grant lapses before its renewal is decided. The data show the result; they cannot show the motive.
The legal backdrop has not moved. Under the 2021 and 2023 rulings by the federal district court in Texas, USCIS still accepts new DACA requests but does not process them, and it continues to decide renewals under the 2022 DACA regulations at 8 CFR 236.22 and 236.23, according to the agency’s DACA page. The Fifth Circuit’s January 2025 decision left deferred action intact but questioned the work-authorization piece, at least for Texas, and sent the case back to the district court; USCIS’s page continues to describe renewals as being processed. All of that means renewals are the only way the program continues, and every renewal that slips past expiration matters more than it would in a program still taking new members.
When a renewal outlasts the work permit
Does a pending DACA renewal extend my work permit? No. Unlike few work-permit categories, DACA employment authorization documents do not get an automatic extension while a renewal is pending. USCIS’s DACA guidance says that without an approved renewal, a recipient is not authorized to work until a new card is issued. USCIS has severely restricted the automatic extension on categories such as H-4 EAD or EAD based on I-485 which were earlier available.
What must my employer do? Employers have to reverify employment eligibility on Form I-9 by the expiration date. If the worker cannot show a valid document, the employer must take the person off the job. Some employers use unpaid leave rather than termination so the person can return once the renewal is approved. CBS described one recipient who took unpaid leave and another who lost his job and was later hired elsewhere, and reported that construction firms faced project delays when DACA workers lost authorization.
Do I start accruing unlawful presence? Generally yes, once deferred action lapses, unless the person was under 18 when the renewal was filed, according to USCIS’s DACA FAQs. That matters most for anyone who might travel abroad or later seek a green card, because accumulated unlawful presence can trigger the three- and ten-year bars to returning. A short gap is unlikely to create a bar on its own, but people with a long gap, or with earlier periods of unlawful presence, should get legal advice before any international travel.
What is the biggest risk of waiting too long? Missing the one-year mark. USCIS treats a request filed more than a year after DACA expires as a new initial request, not a renewal. Because USCIS is not processing initial requests, a recipient who lets status lapse for more than a year can effectively lose access to the program. Anyone close to that line should file a renewal immediately.
Can I do anything to speed it up? Options are limited. Filing at the earliest point USCIS recommends, 150 days before expiration, is the main step within a recipient’s control. USCIS considers expedite requests case by case, generally with supporting documentation, and grants them at its discretion. Members of Congress can make inquiries for constituents, and some lawyers have turned to federal court to compel decisions in long-delayed cases, though that is slow and fact-specific.
What to watch next is USCIS’s next quarterly data release, which will show whether the backlog is finally shrinking after the spring increase in decisions, and whether the agency revises its public 120-day guidance to match the waits it now acknowledges. Employers with DACA workers should check expiration dates now and plan for possible gaps rather than assume approvals will arrive on time.
This article is for general information and is not legal advice.
Sources
- CBS News: DACA renewal applications face record delays, costing some their jobs (Oct. 8, 2026)
- USCIS: Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), including court status and filing guidance
- USCIS: DACA Frequently Asked Questions
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