WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has largely ended a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients who marry U.S. citizens.
President Trump tried, unsuccessfully, to end DACA during his first term. This week’s action reflects his administration’s ongoing focus on the Obama-era program that shields from deportation hundreds of thousands of immigrants, often referred to as Dreamers, who were brought to the U.S. as children.
“It was inevitable that what Trump was going to do in office this time was to embark on a massive delegalization mission,” said Karen Tumlin, director of the Justice Action Center in Los Angeles. “That’s what this is.”
Tumlin was referring to a ruling by an administrative immigration court that was published Thursday.
The ruling concerns a travel provision afforded to recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program created in 2012. The provision allowed DACA recipients to travel in ways other people without legal status cannot.
DACA isn’t technically a form of legal status, though its recipients are granted work permits.
For immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally, leaving the country or being deported triggers a penalty — many are banned from coming back into the U.S. for a decade.
Most people who qualify for legal residency, or a green card, have to serve that 10-year ban before they can apply for a green card, which can lead to citizenship.
But DACA recipients, under the travel provision called advance parole, could leave the U.S. for school, work or humanitarian reasons. When they returned through an airport or border, the stain of their original unlawful entry was erased.
With the penalty wiped away, a DACA recipient married to a U.S. citizen or who had another way to obtain legal residency could start that process for a green card without delay.
Thursday’s ruling by the Board of Immigration Appeals does away with that benefit.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Zach Kahler said the decision confirms a “straightforward principle” that departing the U.S. has meaning.
“The immigration laws enacted by Congress impose consequences when someone who has accrued unlawful presence, leaves the country and later seeks admission, including when that departure occurs under advance parole,” he said. “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will ensure that immigration filings are decided based on the laws, regulations, and binding legal precedent that govern each case.”
Immigration attorneys and other advocates quickly convened Thursday to determine how the ruling will affect immigrants.
Tumlin said some DACA recipients can still safely travel with advance parole, while for others — particularly those with deportation orders — it would be too risky to leave. She said DACA recipients should consult with an immigration attorney before traveling.
“For over a decade, I could reassure my clients that traveling on Advance Parole was a safe option,” Shilpa Malik, an immigration lawyer in Florida wrote Thursday on X. “What was once a vital protection is now gone.”
Under the ruling, having the travel document may no longer protect certain DACA recipients when they return from their trips abroad, because leaving could expose them to the years-long ban.
The decision also makes obtaining green cards more difficult. Tumlin said some DACA recipients could qualify for waivers that allow them to avoid the years-long reentry ban, but the waivers are granted under limited circumstances.
The latest federal data show there are 455,000 DACA recipients in the U.S. as of March, with about 126,000 in California.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, 45,447 DACA recipients were approved for advance parole as of Aug. 21, 2017.
About 76,000 DACA recipients had become legal residents as of July 31, 2019, most after marrying a U.S. citizen, according to the research service. It’s unclear how many DACA recipients have obtained advance parole or green cards since then.
Path2Papers, a project at Cornell Law School, analyzed 1,600 consults and estimated that around 60% of DACA recipients would be subject to the 10-year ban.
Republicans have viewed advance parole as an abuse of the immigration system.
The office of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) blasted the provision, saying in 2017 that “the Obama administration allowed thousands of DACA recipients to exploit an immigration law loophole to obtain green cards.”
Last year, Grassley introduced a bill to guarantee that it would no longer be used by immigrants seeking to adjust their legal status. This week’s ruling essentially accomplishes that goal.
The immigration appeals board’s decision applies to future travel. People who previously traveled and returned to the U.S. won’t be affected and could still adjust their immigration status.
Tumlin said Thursday’s decision is yet another effort to change the goalposts for DACA recipients by an administration that has resorted to ending the program “through death by a thousand cuts.”
The Department of Homeland Security has arrested hundreds of immigrants with DACA, and in a February letter to U.S. senators, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the agency had deported 86 DACA recipients between Jan. 1 and Nov. 19, 2025.
One of those was Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez, a Sacramento mother who was deported a day after her green card interview. A federal judge later ordered the agency to bring her back to the U.S.
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