Immigration advocates are speaking out after an immigration appeals court ruled that immigrants under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program won’t be enough to keep Dreamers from being deported.

The Board of Immigration Appeals, which is part of the Justice Department, issued the decision Friday. The court sided with Department of Homeland Security lawyers who appealed a decision from an immigration judge to end deportation proceedings for a DACA recipient, according to an April 25, 2026, article from NPR.

As part of the ruling, immigration judges can no longer rely only on DACA status to prevent deportation.

"If you are a DACA holder and you are placed in removal proceedings for whatever reason you end up in removal proceedings, the judge will no longer have the authority to dismiss," immigration attorney Wendoli Rodriguez said. "You have to consider other factors, and more than likely that DACA recipient will have to provide or submit for any other immigration relief if available."

Rodriguez said a DACA recipient in immigration court would need to show they're applying for a visa or green card. That could lower their chances of being ordered deported by an immigration judge.

The Obama-era program was intended to shield recipients from deportation while giving them permission to work in the U.S.

The ruling does not take away DACA's protection from ICE executing a deportation order.

"It really reminds us that DACA is not enough. It has never been enough," La Union del Pueblo Entero spokesperson Luis Castillo said. "And this is just the latest in a coordinated series of attacks trying to deport the hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients and particularly those that are living here in the Rio Grande Valley."

Castillo said politicians need to stop using DACA as a political game from both sides.