JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Nearly 14 years ago, then-President Barack Obama launched Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
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BARACK OBAMA: Effective immediately, the Department of Homeland Security is taking steps to lift the shadow of deportation from these young people.
SUMMERS: DACA was billed as a temporary program for those who entered the country illegally as children before 2007. Applicants at the time could be as old as 31. Now, about half a million people are on DACA. As NPR's Ximena Bustillo reports, recipients are older, with deep connections to the U.S., even as they face weaker protections under this administration.
XIMENA BUSTILLO, BYLINE: Diana was brushing her teeth one day in her Phoenix apartment when...
DIANA: I hear, like, this pounding on my door.
BUSTILLO: She lives alone.
DIANA: The logical part of me is like, OK, it's got to be one of my neighbors. But also, it's like, what if ICE is here to get me?
BUSTILLO: ICE arrests, detains and deports people without legal status, which increasingly includes DACA recipients.
DIANA: I look through the peephole, and I see a person dressed in, like, beige clothes and, like, a man with a cap on. And I can't tell who it is.
BUSTILLO: It was just a neighbor asking for a package that had been mistakenly delivered to her door. Diana's a DACA recipient, but earlier this year, her legal protection lapsed for a month. During that time, she couldn't drive. She couldn't go to her job as a registered dietitian for patients with eating disorders.
DIANA: I had this, like, hypervigilance and hyperawareness that at any moment, I could be pulled over for no reason at all, you know, or for a reason and just be taken and, like, put in a detention center.
BUSTILLO: Across the country, DACA recipients like Diana are facing monthslong delays in their DACA renewals this year. A lapse, even by just a few days, means people are subject to immigration arrest, detention and deportation. The delays hit older DACA recipients hard. They're balancing careers, families and mortgages. Reyna Montoya runs an immigrant youth advocacy organization in Arizona.
REYNA MONTOYA: So it's been really interesting to see that now, like, the DACA folks are not the young people, but they are the parents of the young people we serve.
BUSTILLO: According to data from the Homeland Security Department, most DACA recipients are between the ages of 31 and 44. Montoya is one of them. She reflects that being on the temporary program is the reason some have chosen to not have children or own a house.
MONTOYA: Time has passed. It's been close to 15 years since the first time that the DACA program was announced. I mean, that's a lot of years, right? So I think that we grew up like any other American. We age, and that's something that is inevitable. We can't stop time.
BUSTILLO: The main way to get legal status for a DACA recipient is by marrying a U.S. citizen, and most DACA recipients aren't married. Sal Macias is an immigration attorney in Phoenix, who is a DACA recipient himself and married another DACA recipient.
SAL MACIAS: Funny enough, I remember being in my early 20s and saying that I think I'm going to be a citizen when I'm 35. And here I am today at 35 still without anything.
BUSTILLO: He said he knew DACA was supposed to be a temporary program and hoped Congress would pass a permanent pathway to legal status.
MACIAS: Although I am very blessed that we have our home, and I have my career, and I have my own business, I still don't feel stable. I don't know how to plan for the future.
BUSTILLO: The Trump administration said that DACA is not legal status. Most recently, an administrative court inside the Justice Department ruled that being a DACA recipient isn't enough to provide relief from deportation. Diana is aware of these changes.
DIANA: When I thought of the possibilities of what I could achieve with DACA, this is what I envision - like, having a job, having a career that I could be proud of and being able to be independent. And so to a certain degree, I think I've achieved the dream, and I think that there's still, like, a cage around it.
BUSTILLO: Despite its policies, the Trump administration has not taken steps to formally end the program, so DACA recipients are waiting for renewals and for a permanent solution. Ximena Bustillo, NPR News, Phoenix.
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