DACA renewal delays fuel worries Trump is quietly undermining 'Dreamers' [View all]
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/20/daca-delays-dreamers-uscis-00968561
Concerns are mounting on Capitol Hill and among immigration advocates that the Trump administration is quietly gutting a landmark program allowing unauthorized immigrants who came to the U.S. as children to stay, work and study legally in the United States.
A major immigrant rights advocacy group recently documented in a study that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is taking months longer on average to renew legal protections for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, often referred to as Dreamers.
Those delays are causing some supporters of the program on Capitol Hill to worry the Trump administration is weaponizing bureaucracy to undermine DACA. In floor speeches and on social media last week, prominent Democrats accused the Trump administration of targeting DACA recipients unfairly as part of the White Houses immigration crackdown.
I cant see how its not intentional, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), one of the main legislative champions for the DACA program, said in a brief interview. In previous years, wed get maybe a dozen cases in which DACA recipients were left waiting for long stretches of time for their work permits to be approved. Now, Padilla notes, its in the hundreds.
On the other side of the aisle, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) said she had serious concerns about the slowdown in processing.