DACA delays: Recipients are losing protections and work permits as wait times surge | CNN Business

Marco, 26, graduated from one of the country’s top medical schools last week. He found his calling after witnessing his grandmother battle cancer, and he sometimes worked up to 40 to 60 hours a week to afford his education. Marco is one of the over 500,000 active recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) - an Obama-era program temporarily shielding some immigrants brought to the US as children from deportation – who are granted a work permit they can renew every two years. He applied for his renewal in December 2025, his lawyer says, and still has not received it. He joins a growing number of recipients who risk losing their work permits and falling out of status due to processing delays. (CNN agreed to use the pseudonym “Marco,” as he feared speaking to the media could jeopardize his renewal.) “This is a dramatic increase in people dealing with incredibly long, and disruptive delays… we are seeing somewhere between a 400% and 1000% increase in processing times, based on our conversations with small businesses, large employers at roundtables and DACA recipients around the country,” said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, a bipartisan advocacy organiz