Appellate Judges Reinstate Deportation Path for DACA Recipient After Lower Court's Brief Mercy

In a decision that effectively undoes a rare act of judicial clemency, three senior appellate immigration judges this week ruled in favor of Department of Homeland Security attorneys who had challenged Immigration Judge Michael Pleters’ termination of removal proceedings against Catalina “Xóchitl” Santiago, a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The appellate panel’s reversal not only reinstates the legal machinery that could culminate in Santiago’s deportation but also signals a broader willingness within the immigration adjudication system to prioritize enforcement objectives over the limited protections afforded by DACA.

After Judge Pleters concluded that Santiago’s DACA status rendered her ineligible for removal, DHS lawyers filed an appeal contending that the lower court had misapplied statutory criteria, a contention the appellate judges accepted without addressing the underlying policy incongruity that allows a program designed to shield qualifying youths from expulsion to be readily dismantled through procedural technicalities. By siding with the executive agency rather than upholding the lower court’s attempt to recognize the humanitarian rationale behind deferred action, the three judges reinforced a pattern wherein procedural avenues serve as the sole lever for DACA recipients to contest removal, thereby exposing a systemic gap between the program’s ostensible promises and the reality of its enforceability.

The outcome, which effectively makes deportation of a DACA beneficiary more attainable despite the program’s continued formal existence, exemplifies the paradox of a policy that persists on paper while its operational safeguards are steadily eroded by judicial deference to enforcement agencies, a development that critics argue undermines the credibility of an immigration framework already plagued by inconsistency and legal uncertainty. Unless Congress or the courts establish clearer, enforceable boundaries that prevent executive actors from circumventing the limited protections DACA purports to provide, similar reversals are likely to proliferate, leaving countless young immigrants in a perpetual state of precarity that the original legislation ostensibly sought to alleviate.

Published: April 25, 2026