by Elsa Sanchez, Georgia Recorder, [This article first appeared in the Georgia Recorder, republished with permission]
July 14, 2026
I came to the United States from Mexico at the age of four, and I have lived in Atlanta, Georgia, for as long as I can remember. Every two years since 2012, I have followed the recommendation of the U.S. government to submit my renewal 120 days before the expiration date. For the last three renewals, they were approved within a week or two, but now it is a very different story.
We celebrated the 14th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) on June 15, 2026. The DACA program has been a beacon of hope for people such as myself for 14 years, providing work authorization and relief from deportation for hundreds of thousands of people who immigrated to the U.S. as children and have built lives under this program — including myself.
But on April 1, 2026, I was still waiting for my application to be accepted four months after submitting it. This meant I no longer had work authorization through the DACA program and was no longer able to legally work in this country. The company I work for tried to support me by allowing me a 60-day unpaid leave of absence, but with the requirement that I regain my work authorization by June 1, 2026, or be at risk of losing my position.
On May 20, 2026, my application was finally approved, but not before I had to pull funds from savings I had put aside for my 19-year-old daughter’s college education just to make rent and support us both.
I am not alone in this struggle. DACA recipients across the country have been experiencing delays in the approval of their applications. These delays aren’t simply an issue of administrative timing; they have real impact on people’s lives and the companies they work for. Since the beginning of 2025, over 270 DACA recipients have faced detention, with at least 174 having been removed from the country. These cases come amid ongoing delays in processing that have left many recipients without valid work authorization or legal status — even when their renewal applications were filed on time.
This trend suggests the DACA program is being systematically undermined, one step at a time. I see it in my own life and in the lives of people around me. Those of us who are doing exactly what was asked of us, and then some, are still being targeted and forced to live in fear of losing our legal standing.
The president has spoken directly to this issue, stating that Dreamers should “feel safe,” and expressing his desire to “work with Democrats and Republicans to do something about the Dreamers.” He even acknowledged the reality of who we are, saying “many of these are middle-aged people now. They don’t even speak the language of their country.” He is describing people like me. I arrived here at the age of four. I have never known any home other than the United States.
As DACA marks its 14th year, the administration can help. First, the administration can direct the federal government to address the renewal backlog, ensuring that no eligible recipient is stripped of their status due to bureaucratic failures within the very system they placed their trust in. Second, the administration could act on the opening the president himself acknowledged — reaching across party lines to provide a clear and concrete pathway to citizenship for individuals who have dedicated their entire adult lives to building this nation. Dreamers like me have honored our commitment for 14 years. Washington now has an opportunity to do the same.
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