Immigration judge

Growing delays in DACA renewal processing are creating uncertainty for recipients nationwide, including an estimated 16,000 in Arizona. Federal data show the median wait for renewals rose to roughly 70 days between October and February, up from about 15 days previously, with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reporting more than 200,000 pending applications, the highest number on record. Immigration attorneys say processing has become unpredictable, with some later filers receiving approvals before earlier applicants.

The delays carry real stakes: recipients whose work authorization lapses while awaiting renewal lose both employment eligibility and protection from removal proceedings. The Department of Homeland Security says more than 260 DACA recipients have been detained and more than 80 deported. A Tucson immigration judge's recent ruling allowing a case against a DACA recipient to proceed has further unsettled recipients and advocates, who say the program's protections feel less certain than before, even for those who have maintained status for years.

Sister Rose Patrice Kuhn, a 78-year-old Philadelphia-based nun with the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, has spent the past year attending weekly federal immigration court hearings in Harlingen, Texas, offering prayer and moral support to immigrants and their families facing deportation proceedings. Kuhn, who has lived in the Rio Grande Valley since 2022 and previously worked in Chile, focuses particularly on unaccompanied minors, though she now reports roughly a third of young people she encounters are opting to self-deport rather than continue their cases.

Court observations show most adult defendants are also requesting cancellation of removal orders in favor of voluntary self-departure, encouraged partly by a Department of Homeland Security program using the CBP Home Mobile App, which offers travel assistance, a cash exit bonus, and fine forgiveness. Kuhn also noted a growing pattern of judges granting asylum contingent on relocation to third countries rather than immigrants' homelands, including cases separating families across different destination countries.