Trump abandons Dreamers despite past sympathy
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President Trump talks sympathetically about the country's 500,000 Dreamers — but his administration is putting them in the crosshairs for deportation.
Why it matters: The recipients of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program are finding it no longer reliably protects them from deportation or disruptions to their ability to work legally.
- Trump officials are slowing renewals, narrowing deportation protections and ramping up enforcement against some DACA recipients.
- And in Texas, the Fifth Circuit Court has delivered the program's biggest challenge yet, ruling that DACA is illegal. Ongoing litigation is expected to stop Texas-based Dreamers from getting work authorization in the future.
The big picture: In Trump's first term, he almost struck a deal to give Dreamers a pathway to citizenship in exchange for funding for the border wall.
- "I really think this sells itself," Trump told a bipartisan group of lawmakers in 2018. "If we do this properly, DACA, you're not so far away from comprehensive immigration reform. And if you want to take it that further step, I'll take the heat. I don't care."
- The deal never materialized.
- Joe Edlow, Trump's current head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency overseeing DACA renewals, has called DACA "illegal" and "quasi-amnesty."
Between the lines: Immigration hardliners think the administration is effectively ending DACA while trying to avoid political fallout.
- "If the Trump administration were to move to end DACA, which I think they more or less have but not expressly at this point, then it's just going to trigger a bunch of bad headlines," said Art Arthur, of the Center for Immigration Studies and a former immigration judge.
- A White House official declined to say whether Trump's position on DACA has changed or if he's talked with Edlow about the issue.
- "The Trump Administration remains focused on enforcing federal immigration law," the official said in a statement.
Zoom in: The Trump administration has used two key mechanisms to weaken protections for Dreamers.
1) Slower processing times on status renewals: Processing times are as long as six months for some Dreamers, leaving them in bureaucratic limbo while waiting for their renewals.
- Processing data shows it used to be closer to a two-month wait. In the last quarter of fiscal year 2025, there were more than 120,000 pending cases.
- DACA recipients must renew their status and work permits every two years.
2) Removing deportation protections: An April opinion from the Board of Immigration Appeals, the top federal immigration court, found that DACA alone does not shield Dreamers from deportation.
- It advised judges not to automatically dismiss removal cases against Dreamers with valid DACA status.
- Then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem wrote in a letter to senators in February saying 261 DACA recipients (241 of whom had a criminal history) were detained and 86 were deported between January and November of 2025.
- "Any illegal alien who is a DACA recipient may be subject to arrest and deportation for a number of reasons —including if they committed a crime," USCIS Spokesman Zach Kahler said in a statement.
The other side: "If it was up to the President, we would have the dream act done. When he talks about dreamers, I believe he's sincere about it. It's just politics always get in the way, and his advisors, I think, are misguiding him," said Gaby Pacheco, president of TheDream.US, who first met with Trump on the issue in 2013.
- "I would love to [meet with Trump again]," Pacheo said. "If we had an opportunity, even if it was 15 seconds, we would be able to get him fired up to do something about Dreamers."
