‘Unprecedented’ delays to DACA renewals are leaving these LA residents financially and emotionally drained

By the time his work permit expired in January, Sam had spent more than two decades in the United States.

Under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, the 31-year-old resident of Koreatown had graduated from Cal State Northridge, earned a graduate degree, built a career in healthcare and become a dedicated member of his church. He paid taxes, stayed out of trouble and lived an ordinary life in Los Angeles. 

Like hundreds of thousands of other DACA recipients, it took filling out a set of forms every two years, paying a filing fee of $555 to renew online or $605 via mail, then taking time off work to give the government a set of fingerprints.

Eventually, he stopped thinking of himself as undocumented.

“I admit that psychologically, I was living life as if I was a citizen,” said Sam, who asked to be identified only by his first name out of privacy concerns. “That was kind of my mentality.”

That ended this year. Though approval for his renewal normally arrived within two or three weeks, this time, Sam was left waiting, unable to legally work and increasingly consumed by what the worst-case scenario could cost him.

His experience is mirrored across the LA region, home to more than one in 10 DACA recipients nationwide, where lawmakers and advocates are scrambling to help with delays they say are unprecedented. The Trump administration says the slowdown is the result of more thoroughly vetting immigrants. But to Sam and other recipients interviewed by The LA Local, the delays have become a reminder that their lives — their ability to work, earn a living and remain in the only country many of them have ever really known — depend on decisions entirely outside their control.

Sam came to the U.S. from South Korea when he was 9 years old in 2003, and his family obtained temporary visas while trying to secure permanent residency. Mistakes by the attorney handling their case ultimately derailed their efforts to obtain green cards, and their status expired in 2008, he said. 

When DACA was announced in 2012, it allowed people like him to work legally and receive temporary protection from deportation. He received his approval for the program the same year.

After being placed on leave from his job when his work permit expired, Sam ran through savings to cover the rent of his Koreatown apartment. Moving back in with his parents would have been cheaper, but he never knew when his application might be approved.

The months of waiting took a mental toll unlike any he had experienced in years. 

“A good number of undocumented folks struggle with a sense of belonging,” he said. “A lot of us grew up having to hustle in a way where you have to prove your worth and value to be a part of this society.”

With that need to prove himself, his inability to work wasn’t just about the money, he said.

“Because your life revolves so much around a need to showcase to people, to the government, to whoever, ‘Look what I’ve done, look what I’ve achieved. I’ve gone through the system. I’m giving back,'” he said. “And when that’s taken away … your whole sense of identity, purpose — everything gets shaken.” 

During the reporting of this story, Sam’s renewal got approved, and he returned to work this week. 

Others are still waiting. 

“I have seen delays in the past, but it was just a number of people here and there,” said Ju Hong, a longtime immigrant rights activist and former DACA recipient who now directs the UCLA Dream Resource Center. “This is the very first time since the inception of the program where there’s a significant number of people I’m hearing going through significant delays, despite the fact that they met the recommended guidelines.”

The system they built their lives around

At its peak, nearly 800,000 people were protected under the program. Today, roughly half a million remain, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Most arrived as children so young — the average age at arrival is about 6 years old — that many have little or no memory of another home. 

California remains the center of the DACA population, home to more than a quarter of all recipients nationwide. More than one in 10 live in the LA-Long Beach-Anaheim area, and most are between 26 and 35 years old, according to USCIS.

“The average DACA recipient has been here for over a quarter century at this point,” said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, which advocates for immigration and criminal justice reform.

“What we’re seeing is totally unprecedented in terms of delays,” Schulte continued. “We are comfortable saying somewhere in the five to 10 times increase in the number of people we are hearing from who are losing their DACA.”

Rep. Jimmy Gomez’s office says it has seen a “significant increase” in constituents seeking help with delayed DACA and work authorization renewals.

“One of the most troubling issues our casework team is seeing is that DACA recipients can only apply for renewal up to 150 days in advance, while some renewals are now taking as long as six months to process,” said a spokesperson for the congressman, whose district includes Koreatown, downtown LA and the Eastside. “That means Dreamers who followed the rules and filed on time are still at risk of losing their work authorization and, in some cases, their jobs through no fault of their own.”

“These delays raise serious concerns that the Trump administration could be intentionally using processing barriers to create fear and uncertainty around the DACA program and pressure Dreamers who followed the rules to give up or self-deport.”

The federal government claims the delays are the byproduct of more rigorous vetting of immigrants.

“Under the leadership of President Trump, USCIS is safeguarding the American people by more thoroughly screening and vetting all aliens,” USCIS spokesperson Zach Kahler said in a statement to The LA Local.  

He went on, “DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country.”

The cost of waiting

The family heirlooms went first. A few pieces at a time, pawned off as the money ran out. 

Jose Morales Perez and his family have started cutting back elsewhere, too, after his DACA status expired in March and he lost his job. They canceled services. His brother-in-law recently came down with pneumonia, but between the cost of gas and everything else, Perez stayed home instead of visiting to help care for him. 

“We’ve been thinking of moving back to Mexico just because it’s been so, so hard over here,” he said.

Perez, 32, has lived in LA for nearly his entire life.

He crossed from Tijuana in 2000 when he was 4 years old. He grew up in East LA, graduated from Garfield High School and later attended Glendale Community College. 

DACA “was a great triumph for us,” he said.

This spring, he was preparing for a promotion at work. He ended up losing his job. 

The loss of income has rippled through nearly every part of Perez’s life.

Perez helps care for his mother, whose diabetes has worsened in recent years. The disease has affected her nervous system and left her unable to walk. To make ends meet, he’s selling food out of his house. 

“I’d hate to leave this country that has given me so much and that we’ve always wanted to be a part of,” he said.

Maria Dona, too, spends her days baking and selling pastries out of her apartment in Mid-Wilshire, trying to slow the drain on her savings. She’s been out of work since March, when her status expired. 

“It’s just survival at this point,” she said. “Because I need to find ways to make money to pay for my rent, to pay for my bills, to take care of my dogs, to just live day to day.”

These days, Dona, 34, is weighing the possibility of returning to the Philippines, a country she left when she was 6.  

“Mentally, it’s just a black hole of, ‘Am I going to be okay?’ My biggest concern is having to leave my life here for a completely different one in a country that I barely even know,” she said. 

Growing up, she wasn’t aware of her immigration status; she never understood why her parents refused to let her get a learner’s permit or a job.

“You’re undocumented and can’t do that because maybe they’ll deport you,” her parents finally told her when she started applying to colleges. She later enrolled in community college and, without telling her parents, applied to UCLA, where she graduated in 2017. 

Dona said discussions about returning to the Philippines rarely go very far. 

“I tried to talk to my mom about it … and her response is always, ‘No, I hate the Philippines, you can’t go back to the Philippines.’ And I understand that she has her own traumas with the Philippines and I understand that she came here for a better life and she wants me to stay here,” she said.

“But at the end of the day, I can’t be in this limbo in a country that I don’t feel like I belong in, though I’ve tried my very best.”

While Dona is already living through the consequences of a delayed renewal, Albert is trying his best to avoid them.

A 28-year-old employee with the city of LA who declined to give his full name out of privacy concerns, Albert’s work permit is valid until November. But that hasn’t done much to ease his nerves.

Albert arrived from Guatemala before his first birthday and has spent his entire life in LA. 

In previous years, he typically renewed three months before expiration. This year, he filed six months early, not wanting to get caught in the same backlog that has sidelined other recipients.

He said he has too much at stake to take the chance. His mother is undocumented, and if his work authorization lapses, the family would lose its main source of financial support. 

“She’s entering closer to a senior age, and I just feel overwhelmed with the sense of urgency and that I’m racing against time,” he said. 

R.G.’s work permit expires June 25.

R.G., an employee at a Long Beach hospital who declined to give his full name out of privacy concerns, has already been told by human resources that he will be placed on leave if his renewal does not arrive in time.

“My biggest fear is deportation and losing my job,” he said. “I have a partner, and I’m the main source of income.”

He’s told his partner she can stay with her family if things get worse. As for himself, he’s considering sleeping in his car.

“I don’t have family here. If they deport me, I have family in Mexico, but I don’t even know them,” he said. “So I’d rather sleep in my car and then see what I can do.”

R.G., 33, came to the U.S. from Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2002. His parents told him they were going to Disneyland. Years later, when he tried to join the U.S. Army, his parents broke the news that he was undocumented and could not enlist.

He attended community college while working seven days a week, convinced that some future immigration reform might eventually allow him to pursue a career in law enforcement or the military.

“People say, go back to your country,” he added. “Go back where? This is my country.”

But for Paul, 28, who declined to give his full name out of privacy concerns, the possibility of leaving has become impossible to ignore.

He was born in South Korea in 1998. When he was 2 years old, his mother brought him to the U.S. after a man she was dating at the time promised he could secure citizenship for both of them, he said. 

Instead, they remained undocumented, and Paul said his childhood was marked by violence, poverty and instability. So at 18, he decided he wanted to join the U.S. military to “make something of myself.”

“If we are able to join the military or find some other way to prove that we are loyal Americans, by all means, test me,” he said.

As he spoke about how badly he wanted this country to accept him, Paul covered his face with his hands and struggled to continue.

“The stress is killing me,” he said. “It’s not the fact that I might get deported. It’s waiting to see if they’re going to deport me or not.”

His grandmother, a U.S. citizen, tells him to wait. The laws will change eventually, she says. 

Paul isn’t convinced. Lately, he has been researching countries where he might be able to start over, focusing on places that feel as different from the U.S. as possible.

“I just want to live like a normal human being.”