Erika Marquez recalls crying everyday for a month up until her Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) renewal was approved in Aug. 2026.
According to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the average wait time in March 2026 for renewals was around three months. Marquez’s renewal took around 205 days, making her wait an additional 115 days.
The average time, as of Sept. 23, increased — now 80% of cases, which are handled by USCIS, are completed within seven months.
Marquez, an advocate at the nonprofit Make the Road Nevada, said waiting for the renewal emotionally drained her.
“I was scared that I [could] get pulled over … especially when my children were with me, because what would have happened if I got pulled over?” Marquez said.
The DACA program may be purposefully crumbling, said Kevin Johnson, a law professor at the University of California, Davis.
“It strikes me that President Trump's administration isn't committed to the DACA policy,” Johnson said. “It's slowly allowing it to wither away by not accepting applications, by removing some DACA recipients and delaying as long as possible renewals of DACA.”
Project 2025, a policy plan created by the conservative public policy think tank, the Heritage Foundation, said DACA is an unlawful program. Although President Donald Trump has denounced any connection to the policy plan in his 2024 presidential campaign, at least 140 people who worked in his administration contributed to Project 2025.
He has since embraced the policy plan as a blueprint for his current administration. President Trump also attempted to repeal the program in 2017.
Kyle Edgerton, a northern Nevada immigration attorney, said he doesn’t know why renewals are delayed; however, he said the DACA process has had long term issues.
“The other piece is that USCIS is funded by its service fees, and so it's always been underfunded. It's always had more demand than resources available to meet that demand,” Edgerton said.
The National Immigration Law Center (NILC) website says delays might be because of the recipient's country of origin or because biometric requirements have been reinstated, a requirement temporarily paused because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A U.S. Department of Homeland Security memorandum requested that USCIS pause processing benefit applications, including DACA renewal requests, for people who are nationals of countries listed in Presidential Proclamations 10949 and 10998.
Following several court orders listed in the memorandum, the pause is no longer in effect.
For Marquez, and many other recipients, losing DACA means losing work authorization and her income, which would leave her unable to support her four kids and husband.
“If I were to have lost my job, I think I wouldn't be the only one impacted. I think a lot of people would have been impacted,” Marquez said.
Edgerton, the Nevada attorney, has been advising his own DACA recipients as best as possible. He can advise his clients to apply earlier than typically recommended, but there are issues with that.
“There's a tactical or pragmatic incentive to apply as late as you can while still being on time, because you don't want to basically steal six months of status from yourself,” Edgerton said.
He also said some clients might be advised to just keep working, even if there is a lapse in work authorization; it's an option for DACA recipients who could lose their entire livelihood.
“Given those stakes, if someone wants to keep showing up to work and their employer doesn't say, ‘Hey, your status is no good. I need to let you go.’ They should probably just keep showing up for their work and their paycheck,” Edgerton said.
NILC also advises that a recipient does not have the “affirmative duty” to report terminated DACA status. The employer has the obligation to ask to see the new work permit.
However, Johnson said working under the table comes with risks.
“I don't want to suggest that all employers are this way because I don't think it's true. But some employers may exploit undocumented immigrants,” Johnson said. “[They] may take advantage of the undocumented worker who's desperate for work, literally.”
Marquez received her DACA status in February of 2014. Before then, she describes harsh working conditions.
“I had to work a lot of under the table jobs, jobs where consistently the owners would tell me, ‘Oh, we hire your people because it's cheap labor,’” Marquez said. “[My previous] boss still had the audacity to be able to say, ‘If I had the opportunity to be able to deport all of your people, I would totally do so.’”
DACA provided new work prospects and the opportunity to seek better conditions; however, with delayed renewals, this protection is at risk of disappearing. Johnson said this is another barrier recipients now face.
“Some of them have to decide whether to work unlawfully. They're in a horrible situation … they have to decide: should I rely on food banks and shelters, or should I work and get paid under the table?” Johnson said.
Although applying earlier potentially protects recipients from a lapse in status, it also brings additional financial strain.
Renewal applications range from $500 - $600 with additional fees. Renewing early means paying that amount in quicker intervals.
Although Marquez was relieved to receive her DACA status in 2014, she believes there are persistent issues with the program.
“I personally think that DACA and TPS and any sort of visa are temporary. They're temporary fixes. They're band-aids, well known, just to cover a big wound,” Marquez said.
In the face of DACA’s instability, she remains positive in the future and urges lawmakers to create a real pathway to citizenship.
