Advocates, Lawmakers Urge Homeland Security to Protect DACA Recipients from Deportation

(UNITED STATES) — Department of Homeland Security officials arrested 261 DACA recipients between January 1 and November 19, 2025, and deported 86 of them, according to DHS statistics shared with Congress.

Kristi Noem, the DHS secretary, wrote in a letter to Sen. Dick Durbin that 241 of those arrested — 92% — had criminal histories that included pending charges or convictions beyond civil immigration violations.

Advocates and Democratic lawmakers have criticized the arrests and deportations, arguing they clash with how Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals works in practice, especially the repeated screening many DACA recipients undergo to renew their protections.

DACA grants deferred action, a form of temporary protection from removal, and work authorization to eligible people who came to the United States as children. It does not provide lawful status, and it does not create a path to citizenship by itself.

Deferred action also differs from permanent status in a way that often shapes how recipients assess risk. DACA rests on government discretion, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services can terminate it at any time in its discretion, even if threshold criteria are met.

That discretionary framework can matter in routine, everyday ways. A person can hold active DACA, keep a work permit, and still face immigration consequences if the government decides to end deferred action in a specific case.

DACA’s current scale underscores why enforcement against recipients draws attention even when it involves a small share of enrollees. As of June 2025, about 516,000 Dreamers held active DACA status, mainly in California, Texas, Illinois, Florida, and New York.

The 2025 enforcement figures have also prompted questions about what, exactly, the statistics represent. Arrests, detention, and deportation are related but different stages in immigration enforcement, and a case can move through them quickly or slowly depending on decisions by immigration authorities and the courts.

An arrest generally refers to a person being taken into immigration custody, while detention typically means holding someone in an immigration facility as their case proceeds. A deportation, also described as a removal, refers to the government carrying out the person’s departure from the United States under an order or process that results in removal.

For DACA recipients, the distinction is not academic. Someone can be arrested and released, arrested and detained, or arrested and later removed, and the steps between those outcomes can hinge on discretion, allegations in an arrest record, and how immigration authorities prioritize cases.

Noem’s letter to Durbin framed the 92% criminal-history figure as including pending charges or convictions beyond civil immigration violations. The letter did not provide specifics on severity.

That kind of criminal-history statistic can also be difficult to interpret without more detail. A criminal history can refer to an arrest that did not lead to a conviction, a pending charge that has not been resolved, or a prior conviction unrelated to immigration.

DACA recipients can still be arrested or placed in removal proceedings despite having deferred action. Discretion can cut both ways: it can allow continued protection, or it can permit termination and enforcement even when a person otherwise appears to fit basic guidelines.

The enforcement numbers emerged as the second Trump administration set immigration priorities that include national security threats, public safety risks, recent border crossers, and serious criminals. DHS has said any non-citizen without permanent status faces potential removal.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement considers DACA recipients low-priority, but DHS has also pointed to how expanded local police cooperation can raise risks during routine encounters. That dynamic can pull people into federal systems through fingerprints and other data-sharing that occurs after arrests and jail bookings.

Democratic lawmakers have pressed Noem for more information about how DHS selected DACA recipients for arrest and deportation, and what due process steps applied before removal. Oversight questions often turn on definitions and criteria, including what DHS counts as a criminal history and how it distinguishes pending charges from convictions.

Durbin, Sen. Mark Kelly and Sen. Alex Padilla demanded additional details from Noem, writing: “We won’t accept partial information, and we demand that Secretary Noem provide more information on their basis for arresting and deporting DACA holders immediately.”

Padilla also pressed Noem during hearings about what he described as the wrongful targeting of DACA recipients. Advocates say the detentions and deportations can feel inconsistent with a program that requires recipients to repeatedly submit information to the government and undergo screening when they renew.

Advocacy groups have pointed to DACA’s long reach since it began in 2012. The National Immigration Law Center has highlighted DACA’s role in protecting over 834,000 individuals from deportation since 2012, while warning that the program remains under legal threat.

Legal uncertainty has shaped how DACA operates for years, and it continues to define who can newly receive benefits versus who can renew. A January 2025 Fifth Circuit ruling upheld DACA’s deportation protection nationwide but limited work authorization for new recipients in Texas.

Renewals can continue while litigation proceeds, preserving protections for many current recipients even as the courts consider DACA’s future. The Fifth Circuit ruling allowed renewals to continue pending Supreme Court appeal.

That posture creates a split screen for DACA recipients and their families. Many people who already hold DACA can keep renewing, while those who never enrolled — or who might have aged into eligibility — face a more constrained pathway depending on where they live and how the courts rule.

The legal backdrop can also affect how people plan for risk without changing day-to-day responsibilities like renewing work authorization and keeping addresses updated. It can shape decisions about whether to consult counsel, how to prepare for encounters with law enforcement, and what documents to keep readily available.

Noem’s letter and the lawmakers’ response also reflect an enduring tension built into DACA itself. The program offers temporary protection and the ability to work, but it leaves recipients without permanent status, meaning they remain exposed to broader enforcement systems that can activate through discretionary choices and inter-agency information sharing.

DHS enforcement priorities often use broad categories such as national security and public safety, and applying those categories in practice can turn on case-by-case judgments. Even when a group is labeled low-priority, allegations of serious criminal conduct or other factors can change how an individual case is treated.

Local law enforcement cooperation can increase exposure for non-citizens who do not hold permanent status, including DACA recipients, when a traffic stop or arrest leads to fingerprints being shared with federal databases. The result can be an immigration hold, a transfer into federal custody, or the start of removal proceedings, even when a person had not expected immigration consequences from a local incident.

DACA also depends on compliance with its own rules, and renewals can become higher-stakes when there has been an arrest, a charge, or an allegation that immigration authorities view as a public safety concern. Misrepresentation issues can also raise termination risk, because the program rests on discretionary determinations that can be revisited.

Renewals remain available nationwide via USCIS. For many recipients, renewal is the main practical step that keeps deferred action and work authorization in place, and it typically involves preparing supporting evidence, filing, tracking notices, and responding if the agency seeks more information.

USCIS can ask for additional documentation through a request for evidence, or issue a notice of intent to deny, and recipients often track their cases closely so they do not miss deadlines. USCIS may also require biometrics steps as part of processing.

Even with an established renewal history, DACA recipients face the reality that eligibility assessments can involve both threshold guidelines and discretion. The existence of a work permit or a prior approval does not guarantee continued protection, because the agency retains the authority to terminate DACA and because enforcement agencies can take action in specific circumstances.

Advocates argue that repeated vetting should count for more when DHS assesses enforcement action against DACA recipients. Lawmakers pushing for oversight have sought a clearer picture of how DHS interprets its own data, how it defines criminal histories in the statistics it provides to Congress, and what procedural steps occur before a DACA holder is detained or deported.

For recipients, often less about abstract policy fights and more about how quickly a routine interaction can escalate. With priorities that emphasize public safety and serious criminal conduct, allegations can matter even before a case is resolved, and data-sharing between local and federal systems can move a person from a local jail into immigration custody.

At the same time, the program’s protections remain real for hundreds of thousands of people who hold active DACA, and renewals continue. The tension between those two truths — ongoing protection for many and enforcement against a smaller number — now sits at the center of a political fight that includes Congress, DHS and the courts.

Durbin, Kelly and Padilla summed up their demand to Noem in stark terms: “We won’t accept partial information, and we demand that Secretary Noem provide more information on their basis for arresting and deporting DACA holders immediately.”