Board of Immigration Appeals Issues Landmark Ruling: DACA Status Alone Cannot Block Deportation

The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) issued a precedent-setting decision on April 25, 2026 ruling that holding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status is insufficient grounds to terminate removal proceedings. A three-judge BIA panel reversed an immigration judge's decision to halt the deportation of Catalina 'Xochitl' Santiago — a DACA recipient who had been detained while boarding a domestic flight at El Paso International Airport in August 2025 — and remanded her case to a different immigration judge. The ruling establishes binding administrative precedent across all immigration courts nationwide, potentially weakening protections for approximately 500,000 active DACA recipients. The Justice Department under Trump's second term had argued that DACA is a discretionary program that does not confer legal status and thus cannot provide a legal basis to halt removal. In the prior year, the BIA sided with government lawyers in 97% of its publicly published decisions — more than 30 percentage points above its 16-year average. Former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem reported 261 DACA recipients had been arrested and 86 removed between January and November 2025. The ruling is expected to accelerate ICE enforcement actions against DACA holders who are encountered during enforcement operations, though ICE has not announced a formal policy change targeting the broader DACA population. The decision intensifies uncertainty for Dreamers amid ongoing federal litigation (Texas v. United States) over DACA's statutory validity in the Fifth Circuit, where the program has previously been declared unlawful.