The DACA lawsuit status as of early 2026 is unsettled but stable in practice: a federal district court declared the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program unlawful, the Fifth Circuit largely agreed in a January 17, 2025 ruling but narrowed the remedy, and the case is now back before the district court on remand. Roughly 525,000 current recipients can still renew their status and work permits. No new applicants have been approved since 2021.
Where the Case Stands Now
The most recent substantive ruling came from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on January 17, 2025.1Justia Law. Texas v. United States, No. 23-40653 It changed the litigation in two ways that matter for anyone tracking the program.
First, the court split DACA in two. Applying the severability clause in the 2022 DACA Final Rule, the Fifth Circuit left the program’s deportation forbearance in place and focused the legal problem on the work authorization piece, which the court found lacks statutory support. The district court should have separated those provisions, the appellate panel said, instead of striking down the whole rule.
Second, the court shrank the injunction’s map. Because Texas was the only plaintiff state that had shown a concrete injury from DACA, the Fifth Circuit limited injunctive relief to Texas alone. The nationwide order is gone.1Justia Law. Texas v. United States, No. 23-40653
The case then went back to Judge Andrew Hanen of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas to work out how those changes apply in practice. As of early 2026, that court has not issued a new order. The stay protecting current recipients remains in effect. So does the freeze on first-time approvals.
What This Means for Current Recipients
If you already hold DACA, you can still renew. USCIS continues to accept and process renewal requests on Form I-821D, along with Form I-765 for the accompanying work permit.2U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-821D, Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals That includes recipients living in Texas. The stay that Judge Hanen imposed in 2021 for people who already held DACA at the time of his ruling is still doing its work.
Renewals cover both pieces of the program: the two-year deferral of deportation and the work authorization that runs alongside it. USCIS retains discretion over each individual case, and the underlying eligibility criteria still apply, but the litigation itself is not blocking renewals right now.
What This Means for First-Time Applicants
New DACA applications are a different situation, and they have been since 2021. USCIS will accept an initial request, but under the court’s order the agency will not process or approve it.2U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I-821D, Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Nothing in the January 2025 Fifth Circuit ruling changed that.
The practical effect is a hard cutoff. Someone who turned 15 or finished high school after the injunction took effect, who has never had DACA before, cannot get approved no matter how cleanly they meet the criteria. The pool of DACA recipients can shrink through attrition. It cannot grow.
What the Lawsuit Is Actually About
Texas and several other states sued the federal government, arguing DACA violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The challenge has a procedural side and a substantive side.
The procedural piece: when a federal agency issues a rule that carries the force of law, it normally has to publish the proposal, take public comments, and respond before finalizing. The 2012 DACA memorandum skipped that process entirely. The states argued that made the program defective from the start, because it set binding criteria that determined who could stay in the country and receive work authorization.
The substantive piece cuts deeper. Under 5 U.S.C. 706, courts can strike down agency actions that exceed the agency’s legal authority or conflict with existing statutes.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 706 – Scope of Review The states argue Congress never gave the Department of Homeland Security authority to grant deferred action and work permits to an entire class of people. Immigration law, they say, already spells out who can be present in the country and who can work, and the executive branch cannot expand those categories by memorandum.
DACA itself, created by a June 15, 2012 memorandum from the Secretary of Homeland Security, gives recipients a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and the ability to apply for a work permit.4U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion with Respect to Individuals Who Came to the United States as Children5U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals It does not create lawful permanent residence or a path to citizenship.
How the Case Got Here
In 2021, Judge Hanen ruled for the plaintiff states on both the procedural and substantive challenges. He found that DACA was not simple prosecutorial discretion but a substantive rule with fixed eligibility criteria and significant benefits, and that the underlying immigration statutes did not authorize it.6United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Texas v. United States He vacated the 2012 memorandum and blocked new approvals, but stayed the effect for people already in the program. That split between new and renewal applicants has defined DACA’s operating reality ever since.
While the case was on appeal, the Biden Administration tried to fix the procedural defect. In August 2022, DHS published a Final Rule (87 FR 53152) that codified DACA at 8 CFR 236.21–236.25 after a public comment period, and included a severability clause.7Federal Register. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals – Final Rule The Fifth Circuit affirmed the ruling against the original memorandum in 2022 and sent the case back to evaluate the new rule. In late 2023, Judge Hanen reached the same conclusion about the regulation: correct procedure did not cure the underlying lack of statutory authority. That is the ruling the Fifth Circuit reviewed in January 2025.
What Could Change the Outcome
Courts have repeatedly pointed to Congress as the institution that could resolve DACA’s legal status permanently. The Dream Act of 2025 was introduced as S.3348 in December 2025 and referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary.8Congress.gov. S.3348 – Dream Act of 2025 It has not advanced beyond committee. Similar bills have stalled in earlier sessions.
Without legislation, the program’s survival depends on how courts ultimately resolve two questions: whether the executive branch can authorize work permits for this population without specific congressional authority, and whether the severability approach the Fifth Circuit used holds up on further review. The January 2025 ruling suggests the deferred action piece of DACA may have stronger legal footing than the work authorization piece, but that distinction only survives if the severability analysis does. For now, the roughly 525,000 current recipients keep renewing while the district court works through the Fifth Circuit’s remand instructions.