USCIS’s delayed adjudication of DACA applications raises concerns over Trump Administration “quietly undermining” Dreamers

A diverse group of DACA advocates in Washington, D.C. have started to raise concerns that the Trump Administration is “quietly undermining” the DACA program by significantly delaying case adjudications. For background, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) is a Obama Administration-era program that protects certain noncitizens who arrived in the United States as children from deportation and grants them employment authorization. The program has been heavily litigated during several presidential administrations, and currently the only people who may apply for DACA and DACA-based employment authorization are those who were previously granted DACA.

A June 2026 study from immigration advocacy organization TheDream.us in June 2026 showed that USCIS is now taking six months to approve employment authorization applications for DACA recipients, whereas they previously only took two months. It is unclear whether these delays are part of a larger trend of USCIS taking longer to adjudicate other cases, or whether USCIS is specifically undermining the program.

Read the report from TheDream.us here, and Politico’s reporting on the DACA adjudications delays here.