DACA Renewal Delays Are Leaving Texas Recipients Without Work Permits: Where Things Stand

What Changed, and When

Two separate things are happening at the same time, and they are easy to confuse. One is administrative. One is judicial. Neither has ended DACA.

1. Renewal processing slowed down sharply. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services median processing time for a DACA renewal rose from roughly 15 days in fiscal year 2025 to 122 days as of May 1, 2026, according to CNN’s review of agency data, with some recipients reporting waits of four to six months. USCIS recommends filing a renewal request between 120 and 150 days before expiration. When the median processing time approaches or exceeds that recommended filing window, a person who follows the agency’s own instructions can still reach their expiration date with the application pending.

2. The Texas litigation is at the implementation stage. On January 17, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued its decision in Texas v. United States, No. 23-40653. The court held that major parts of the 2022 DACA rule are unlawful, but it narrowed the injunction in two ways that matter enormously: it limited the injunction’s geographic scope to Texas, because only Texas had established standing, and it left the forbearance component — the part under which recipients are not placed in removal proceedings — outside the injunction. The court also preserved the stay for existing recipients and sent the case back to the district court.

No party asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review that decision before the May 19, 2025 deadline, so the case returned to U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen to work out how the Fifth Circuit’s ruling should actually be implemented. On July 22, 2025, Judge Hanen ordered supplemental briefing on a set of open questions, including whether the other plaintiff states should get a chance to show injury, what effect the Supreme Court’s June 2025 decision in Trump v. CASA on nationwide injunctions has here, how a Texas-only injunction would be administered, how the DACA policy’s severability clause applies, and whether treating DACA holders in Texas differently from those in other states raises Equal Protection or Due Process problems. The parties filed those briefs on September 29, 2025. As tracked by the Presidents’ Alliance and MALDEF, which represents 22 DACA-recipient intervenors, a modified order has not issued. It could come at any time.

What Has Not Changed

This is the part that gets lost, and it is worth stating plainly.

• Existing recipients can still renew. As of this writing, current DACA recipients in Texas and nationwide remain eligible to file renewal requests for deferred action and employment authorization.
• The Fifth Circuit did not order removals. The forbearance piece of DACA was left outside the narrowed injunction.
• No Texas-only order is in effect yet. The Fifth Circuit told the district court to narrow the injunction to Texas; until Judge Hanen enters an order doing so and it takes effect, the change described in the opinion is not operative.
• Slow is not the same as denied. A pending renewal is a pending application, not a rejection, even when the underlying protection lapses in the meantime.

Who in Texas This Reaches

The Texas Tribune reported on July 31, 2026 that roughly 80,000 Texas residents are in the DACA program, and described recipients facing renewal delays that can leave them without lawful work authorization and worried about removal. The people affected are concentrated where Texas’s largest immigrant communities are — Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley — but DACA recipients live in every part of the state.

• Recipients whose employment authorization document is close to expiring, especially anyone who filed inside the recommended window and is still waiting.
• Recipients whose card has already lapsed while a renewal is pending.
• Licensed professionals — nurses, teachers, and others whose state license or employment is tied to current work authorization.
• Drivers. In Texas, a driver license issued to a non-citizen is generally tied to the period of lawful presence, so a lapse can reach the license as well as the job.
• Employers facing a Form I-9 reverification date for an employee whose renewal has not been adjudicated.
• Family members, including U.S.-citizen children, whose household income depends on the work permit.

What This Changes Legally

These are facts about the framework, not advice about any individual case.

• Deferred action and employment authorization are separate things that expire together. They are granted in two-year increments and neither renews automatically.
• There is no automatic extension for a pending DACA renewal. Unlike some other employment authorization categories, a pending DACA renewal does not itself create an automatic extension of an expired card. This is a common and costly misunderstanding.
• Employment authorization is what the Fifth Circuit found unlawful — not the entire program, and the ruling’s operative reach was narrowed to Texas.
• DACA has never conferred lawful status and has never provided a path to citizenship. It is discretionary, temporary, and revocable. That was true in 2012 and it is true now.
• A gap in work authorization has downstream effects on employment, licensing, and in Texas on driver license validity, that are governed by different rules than the immigration filing itself.

What Kind of Option Might Apply

Immigration attorneys describe several things they routinely review for someone in this position. None of this says any particular person qualifies for anything — that determination depends entirely on individual facts and history, which is exactly what a lawyer examines.

• Whether another form of relief has been overlooked. Many people who received DACA as teenagers have since married, had children, been the victim of a crime, worked in a qualifying category, or accumulated years of presence. An immigration lawyer can review whether any family-based, employment-based, humanitarian, or other pathway has become available in the years since — something a person’s own reading of a website generally will not surface.
• Renewal timing and the filing record. A lawyer can review when a renewal was filed, what the receipt notice shows, and whether anything in the file is likely to slow adjudication further.
• What a case inquiry or expedite request involves. USCIS has procedures for cases outside normal processing times and for expedite requests in defined circumstances. Whether either fits a given situation is a judgment call a lawyer can make.
• Employment and licensing exposure. Employment lawyers and immigration lawyers often coordinate on I-9 reverification questions so that a lapse is handled correctly by both the worker and the employer.
• What to do if there is any contact with immigration enforcement. A person who has been detained, or whose family member has, is in a different posture with different and often short deadlines. That is a situation to put in front of a lawyer immediately.

It is best to talk to an immigration lawyer before acting on advice from social media, a notario, or a well-meaning relative. The consequences of a wrong step in this area are measured in years, not dollars.

Why Acting Quickly Can Matter

The timing problem here is arithmetic. USCIS recommends filing 120 to 150 days before expiration; the median renewal was taking 122 days as of May 1, 2026. When those two numbers converge, the margin that used to absorb a slow month is gone. Filing at the earliest point in the recommended window, rather than the latest, is the difference a lawyer will usually look at first.

The second reason is the pending order. Judge Hanen has had full briefing since September 2025 and can rule at any time on how the Texas-only injunction is implemented. Nobody — including us — can tell you what that order will say or when it will land. What a lawyer can do is look at your renewal calendar now, while the current rules are the ones that apply, rather than after an order changes the landscape.

Sources

1. U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit — Texas v. United States, No. 23-40653 (decided January 17, 2025) (primary document)
2. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), including renewal filing guidance
3. Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration — DACA litigation tracker (procedural history, July 22 and September 29, 2025 filings)
4. The Texas Tribune — For Texas DACA recipients, a fearful present and an uncertain future as protected status expires (July 31, 2026)
5. CNN — DACA delays: recipients are losing protections and work permits as wait times surge (May 16, 2026)
6. National Immigration Law Center — Steps to take if your DACA renewal is delayed
7. Justice Action Center Litigation Tracker — Texas v. United States (DACA), district court docket