Board of Immigration Appeals Eases Deportation of DACA Beneficiaries in Removal Hearings

The Board of Immigration Appeals ruled on Friday, April 25, 2026, that DACA status alone is not sufficient grounds to terminate removal proceedings, clearing the way for the Department of Homeland Security to keep pursuing deportation cases against DACA recipients.

A three-judge panel sided with DHS lawyers who challenged immigration judge Michael Pleters’ decision to end removal proceedings for Catalina “Xóchitl” Santiago based solely on her active DACA status. The board held that “the Immigration Judge erred” by relying on DACA alone and sent the case back for review.

The panel also remanded the matter to a different immigration judge. Its ruling is classified as an interim decision, a designation that gives it precedential force for immigration judges across the country.

The decision leaves Santiago not immediately deported, but it sets a broader rule with consequences beyond her case. It weakens one of the arguments that had been used in immigration court to shut down deportation cases involving people with active DACA grants.

DACA was created in 2012 and, in the article’s context, covers approximately half a million people. The program has long offered temporary protection from deportation and work authorization, but the board’s ruling draws a line between having DACA and having a basis to end a deportation case outright.

DHS officials began urging DACA recipients to self-deport starting in 2025, arguing that the program does not automatically provide legal status. The new decision adopts a similar legal distinction inside immigration court, where the question was whether active DACA status by itself could justify termination.

That distinction now carries precedential weight. Immigration judges who confront similar cases must account for the board’s finding that DACA, standing alone, does not require an end to removal proceedings.

The ruling also fits into a broader burst of activity by the Board of Immigration Appeals over the past year. The board published 70 precedent-setting decisions, a record number, reshaping multiple areas of immigration court practice.

Those decisions have made it harder for immigration courts to offer bond in lieu of detention, eased deportations to countries other than recipients’ home nations, and restricted appeal rights. The Santiago ruling adds DACA-based termination requests to that growing list of tighter interpretations.

In Santiago’s case, the dispute centered on a narrow but consequential question: whether a person with an active DACA grant can rely on that grant alone to have a deportation case dismissed. Pleters had answered yes. The appellate panel answered no.

The board’s opinion sided with DHS lawyers on that point and rejected the immigration judge’s earlier approach. By ordering a different judge to take up the case on remand, the panel reset the proceedings rather than ending them.

That outcome matters in immigration court because termination and deferred action are not the same thing. DACA can defer removal, but under the board’s ruling it does not, by itself, erase the underlying case once DHS has placed someone in proceedings.

The decision arrives as the Trump administration keeps pressing a harder line on DACA recipients. The article describes it as the latest step to strip away protections from people enrolled in the program, continuing a push that had already included calls for recipients to leave the country on their own.

Within that policy setting, the board’s role has become more central. Precedent decisions from the Board of Immigration Appeals shape how immigration judges nationwide read statutes, regulations, and agency policy, and an interim decision can reach well beyond the parties named in one appeal.

Hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients are not suddenly subject to automatic deportation because of this one ruling, and Santiago herself was not immediately ordered removed. What changed is the legal footing inside court: active DACA status no longer stands, by itself, as sufficient grounds to terminate removal proceedings.

The immediate result is procedural but substantial. DHS can continue pursuing cases that some immigration judges might previously have ended on the basis of DACA alone, while immigrants in those cases now face a precedent that gives the government a clearer path to keep proceedings alive.

The board’s recent record suggests the Santiago ruling is not an isolated shift. With 70 precedent-setting decisions in a year, covering detention, deportation destinations, and appeal rights, the Board of Immigration Appeals has moved aggressively to define the rules that govern immigration court, one case at a time.