There are more than 11,000 DACA recipients in Nevada
Las Vegas, Nev. – U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) joined Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and her Senate colleagues in sending a letter to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director (USCIS) Ur M. Jaddou calling for USCIS to protect Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients and process renewal applications in a timely manner. Many applicants for DACA renewal report waiting well over five months for their applications to be processed this fiscal year. USCIS median processing times doubled from 2022 to 2023, and so far processing times this year are 90 percent longer than last year. At the same time, deferred action for over 150,000 active DACA recipients will expire between March and September of this year, likely resulting in a significant number of new renewal filings.
“The DACA program has allowed more than 834,000 Dreamers an opportunity to pursue higher education and meaningful careers while remaining in the only home they have ever known,” wrote Cortez Masto and her colleagues.“We thank you for your efforts to fortify the DACA program through rulemaking and for the Department of Homeland Security’s defense of that rule in litigation. Despite these important efforts, DACA recipients face significant uncertainty given litigation challenging the DACA program, and threats by presidential candidate Donald Trump to end the program. Delays in processing DACA renewals are adding to the instability and uncertainty that DACA recipients already face each day.”
“To reduce these disruptions and uncertainty for DACA recipients, we urge you to make a focused effort to reduce processing times for DACA renewal applications and reduce the volume of pending cases,” continued the senators. “We also request that you amend your practices to prevent undue harm to DACA recipients, by starting an approved renewal applicant’s DACA period on the date of expiration of the previous period, rather than the current practice of starting the renewal period from the date of approval. This would prevent DACA recipients from accruing unlawful presence through no fault of their own due to processing delays. It would be consistent with USCIS’ approach to the renewal or extension of other immigration benefits.”
More than 800,000 Dreamers — including 11,000 in Nevada — have since come forward and received DACA since 2012 when the program was first created, allowing them to contribute more fully to their country as teachers, nurses, doctors, engineers, and small business owners. The Biden Administration previously issued a regulation strengthening the DACA program. Dreamers are protected from deportation for now, but due to lawsuits by far-right Republicans, they live in fear that the next court decision will upend their lives.
Full text of the letter is available HERE.
The first and only Latina Senator, Senator Cortez Masto has consistently pushed to fix our broken immigration system by balancing critical border security measures with a path to citizenship for Dreamers, TPS holders, and essential workers. Senator Cortez Masto is an original cosponsor of the Dream Act to provide relief for DACA recipients, and she’s leading legislation to allow them to work in Congress. She successfully pushed the administration to expand health care access for DACA recipients, and she’s led calls to address delays in DACA renewal applications and make cancellation of removal more accessible for long-term noncitizen residents of the U.S. She’s also called on the Biden administration to prioritize additional resources to stop the flow of illicit drugs like fentanyl through ports of entry along the border.
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