Immigration attorney Lorena Rivas explains DACA's current status: existing recipients can renew their two-year work permits, but new applications remain blocked by a Fifth Circuit case in Texas. The federal government recently argued the injunction should apply only to Texas, but no court order has yet allowed USCIS to process new applications.
Hi, hi, it's Attorney Lorena Rivas here, and I wanted to give you a DACA update. And this is as of November 24th, 2025, when I am recording this. What is going on with DACA? And as you guys know, DACA was a program started by President Obama, an executive order that gave Dreamers, or people who came in as children, the ability to get a 2-year work permit and have deferred action as in more protection to be able to be here in the United States and work here in the United States. Since 2012, it has been litigated. It's been in the court systems because some legislators and some presidents haven't liked it, AKA President Trump. So during the first President Trump administration, it was suspended for new applicants. Now, if you already have DACA, you can continue to renew your DACA, but since the first suspension, new applications of DACA have not been approved. You can file your DACA application, but it will not be approved because it's tied up in litigation with the Fifth Circuit in a district in the state of Texas. So what is going on now for all that? Because there's been a lot of back and forth these last few months. Well, the most recent action is that the government filed a brief. Now, a brief is where they write their legal findings and present it to the court, to the judge, stating that they agreed that the lawsuit stopping DACA for new applicants only applied to Texas, and that for the rest of the states, the new applications of DACA should not be suspended. Now, they filed that brief, but since then we haven't heard anything else from the court. We're still waiting on the judge's order ordering USCIS, the government, to approve new applications of DACA. So that's what's going on November 24, 2025, when I'm recording this. However, If you still have DACA, you can continue to renew it, and it's important that you do it. But for new applications, we are still waiting.
