In July 2021, The New York Times‘ Miriam Jordan reported that:
A federal judge in Texas on Friday ruled unlawful a program that has shielded hundreds of thousands of undocumented young adults from deportation, throwing into question yet again the fate of immigrants known as Dreamers.
She interviewed VOLS client William Cabeza Castillo, who is an essential worker at NYU Langone Medical Center. Mr. Cabeza Castillo filed his DACA renewal with the pro bono support of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett early this year. Because USCIS failed to process 44,000 DACA renewal cases, he and other DACA recipients were facing a sudden loss of employment. VOLS engaged in advocacy that included outreach to Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s office for assistance, and Mr. Cabeza Castillo’s DACA renewal and EAD was finally approved in early September 2021.
The Times reported:
Since its inception, DACA has enabled more than 800,000 immigrants who were brought illegally to the United States or fell into unlawful status when they were children to remain in the country and secure work authorization.
A backlog of new and renewal applications had accumulated because the coronavirus pandemic hampered government processing of immigration cases.
“I was working through the pandemic and going through this process for years,” said William Cabeza Castillo, 32, a DACA recipient in New York who was brought to the United States when he was 3. “This makes me feel like a second-class citizen.”
Mr. Cabeza Castillo, who worked as a health aide at a hospital, is currently on unpaid leave because his renewal — required every two years — has not been processed and his protected status, which he had since 2014, expired on June 20.
Knowing that Friday’s ruling did not impede renewals was still not reassuring, he said. “It’s a lot of uncertainty. I’m frustrated by the whole system.”
For more information, visit https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/us/court-daca-dreamers.html