EL PASO — The Board of Immigration Appeals published a precedent decision ruling that holding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status is not, on its own, sufficient grounds to terminate removal proceedings. A three-judge panel of appellate immigration judges sided with Department of Homeland Security lawyers who had appealed Immigration Judge Michael Pleters's decision to end removal proceedings against Catalina "Xóchitl" Santiago based on her active DACA status.

The panel sent Santiago's case back to a different immigration judge for review. The order does not mean she will be immediately deported.

The board did not sustain a DHS argument that Pleters should have been recused because he is married to Democratic Representative Veronica Escobar of Texas, whose district includes El Paso and who has spoken publicly about DACA. Instead, the board said the immigration judge erred by basing his decision to terminate removal proceedings solely on Santiago's DACA status.

Santiago was detained by Customs and Border Protection officers while boarding a domestic flight at the El Paso airport in August. She was held in immigration detention until a federal judge granted her release last October, and she has been fighting the threat of deportation in the immigration court system since.

The Board of Immigration Appeals is an administrative court within the Justice Department. After a case is heard by an immigration judge, both the immigrant and DHS have the right to appeal to the board, whose published decisions set precedent for immigration judges nationwide. Immigration courts are housed within the Executive Office for Immigration Review and are not part of the judiciary.

The DACA program was created in 2012 to protect from deportation children who arrived in the United States illegally before 2007. It now covers around half a million people, offers temporary protection rather than a path to citizenship or a green card, and requires participants to renew every two years. Starting in 2025, DHS officials began urging DACA recipients to self-deport, arguing that the program does not automatically provide legal status. The second Trump administration has sought to strip 505,000 DACA recipients of benefits, though no regulatory changes have been made to end the program.

Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, deputy director of Advocacy and Campaigns at United We Dream, said: "For over a decade, DACA has endured relentless, politically motivated attacks. This decision is yet another step in dismantling the program without the government taking responsibility for ending it outright. This is a quiet rollback of protections, and our communities are paying the price in real time."

Over the last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorneys have increasingly appealed more decisions to the board, which issued 70 published decisions, a record number of precedent-setting cases. Board decisions backed government lawyers in 97% of publicly posted cases last year, at least 30 percentage points higher than the average over the past 16 years. A proposed regulation would make it harder for people to appeal their immigration decisions.