DACA Renewal Applications Face Record Delays, Costing Some Their Jobs

CBS Bay Area

October 9, 2026

Beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program have been waiting longer than they ever have before for the government to decide on renewing their deportation protections, federal data shows, leading some to lose work authorization in the interim.

While the number of people whose DACA protections have expired due to delays is not clear from publicly available data, the number of active DACA holders declined by 14%, to 436,350, between September 2025 and June 30. Meanwhile, the backlog of pending renewal applications has more than quadrupled over that timeframe, to over 125,000. DACA recipients file for renewal every two years.

"You feel like you don't have agency, like nothing that you do is good enough because it's outside of your control," said Juan Carlos Cerda, whose DACA renewal application took six months to process, causing him to take unpaid leave from his role as the Texas director for the American Business Immigration Coalition. "I had to pull back on spending and had to cut bills, things that were not necessary in order to make ends meet."

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