If your DACA expires while your renewal is still sitting in a queue, your work authorization expires with it, and there is nothing automatic or forgiving about that. The most useful thing a DACA attorney can do for you right now is calendar work: getting the renewal filed early enough that the slowdown at USCIS never reaches you.
The slowdown is real and it is recent. The median DACA renewal took about 15 days in fiscal year 2025. By May 2026 it was roughly 122 days, and some renewals have run four to six months. USCIS attributes the change to more thorough screening and vetting under the current administration. Whatever you call it, the effect on someone who needs to keep a job is the same, and it lands on people who did everything the government asked of them.
It is worth being clear about what DACA is, because the protection is narrower than most people assume. DACA was created in 2012 by executive action, through a Department of Homeland Security memorandum, and not by an act of Congress. That is why it has never been stable. Deferred action is not lawful immigration status, and in April 2026 the Board of Immigration Appeals held that DACA alone does not stop removal proceedings from moving forward, even while the grant is still in place.
File Early. This Is the Part You Control.
USCIS recommends filing a renewal 120 to 150 days before your current period expires, and says plainly that filing in that window reduces the risk that your DACA and your work permit run out before a decision arrives. With processing where it is, that window is no longer cautious advice. It is the difference between continuous employment and a gap.
Renewals are also drawing more biometrics appointments and more requests for evidence than they used to. Each one adds time. If you are inside 150 days of your expiration date, that is the reason to call today rather than next month.
New Applications Are Still Frozen
USCIS accepts first-time DACA requests but is not processing them, following the Fifth Circuit’s January 2025 decision in the Texas litigation. If you have never held DACA, that door is closed for the moment.
That is not the same as having no options. Other forms of relief exist and eligibility turns on details most people have never been asked about. It is worth a conversation with an attorney rather than an assumption.
What Local Policy Does, and What It Does Not Do
You may have heard that certain California agencies limit how far they cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. Those policies are real. They also do not stop federal enforcement, and it is a serious mistake to treat them as protection. Immigration arrests in and around courthouses have increased across the Inland Empire, which means the safest assumption is that a local policy will not shield you.
If you are detained, or if someone in your family is, the time to have a lawyer’s number is before it happens.
We Will Say This Plainly
The Law Offices of Alejo Lugo & Associates has represented immigrants in Riverside County for over 20 years, through several administrations and several versions of this same argument. The people who sit in our office are not a policy debate. They are people who arrived here as children, who have jobs, families and rent to pay, and who are now being asked to keep proving a right to stay in a system that keeps moving the line and slowing the clock.
We think that is worth saying out loud. We also think the answer to it is unglamorous and practical: file early, keep your record clean, know what your grant does and does not cover, and do not take legal advice from a rumor. We are a fully bilingual firm and we will explain all of it in English or Spanish, in plain language, as many times as you need to hear it.
Call Now, Before Your Window Closes
If your DACA expires within the next five months, or if you are unsure when it expires, call (800) 497-0018 now for a consultation. Bring your current approval notice and your work permit if you have them. If you are past a deadline, or think you might be, call anyway. That is a question for a lawyer to answer, not something to decide on your own.