Dreams Deferred: The Human Cost of Slow-Walking DACA Renewals
By: John E. Menditto, Board President, The Foundation for Farmworkers
For more than a decade, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) has allowed hundreds of thousands of young people to step out of the shadows and contribute openly to the communities they call home. These are individuals who grew up in the United States, attended our schools, worked hard, paid taxes, raised families, and sought nothing more than the opportunity to participate fully in American life.
At The Foundation for Farmworkers, we have seen firsthand what DACA makes possible. Over the years, we have helped DACA recipients pay costly USCIS filing fees and obtain legal assistance to prepare renewal applications. For many farmworker families, these costs are significant barriers. Yet the investment yields enormous returns, not only for the recipients themselves but also for their employers, communities, and children.
One of those individuals is M.S.M., who arrived in the United States as a child and later worked in agriculture. After receiving DACA protection in 2012, she was finally able to pursue educational and professional opportunities that had previously been out of reach. As she wrote in a recent letter, “I was no longer living in the shadows. I found better job opportunities. Within one year, my income increased from $22,000 to $35,000. I was also able to earn my GED and take several courses that opened the door to new, more fulfilling work.”
Today, M.S.M. is a Certified Interior Designer, a taxpayer, a wife, and a mother. Reflecting on her journey, she wrote that “gaining protection from deportation gave me the confidence to become the person I knew I could be.”
Her story is not unique. It is the story of DACA at its best.
Yet today, many DACA recipients are facing a growing and largely invisible crisis. Just one year ago, DACA renewal applications were commonly approved within six weeks. Now, many applicants are waiting seven months or longer. During these extended delays, employment authorization documents (EADs) expire, placing workers and employers in impossible situations. Individuals who have contributed to their workplaces for years suddenly lose the legal authorization to continue working. Parents lose income needed to support their U.S. citizen children. Families face uncertainty, financial hardship, and fear.
The consequences extend beyond employment. In many states, driver’s licenses are tied to DACA validity. When renewal approvals are delayed, individuals can lose their ability to drive legally to work, medical appointments, grocery stores, and childcare providers. People who have followed every rule, paid every fee, and submitted every required document find themselves unable to maintain the most basic aspects of daily life.
These delays are not merely administrative inconveniences. They have profound human consequences. They disrupt families, undermine economic stability, and create unnecessary suffering for people who have already demonstrated extraordinary resilience and commitment to their communities. Litigation has been commenced under the Freedom of Information Act to understand why these delays are occurring.
DACA recipients represent many of the values we aspire to uphold as a nation: hard work, perseverance, family responsibility, and service to others. They are teachers, healthcare workers, farmers, designers, and business owners. They are raising American children and strengthening American communities.
When government processing delays needlessly strip away their ability to work, drive, and provide for their families, we should be honest about what is happening. This is not simply bureaucracy. It is a failure to treat human beings with dignity.
Our immigration debates may continue, but no one should suffer because the government cannot process a renewal application in a timely manner. The men and women affected by these delays have done everything asked of them. They deserve better.