By Cyrus D. Mehta and Kaitlyn Field*
On June 6, 2025, USCIS issued a coverage alert stating that it might remove the automated consideration of deferred motion for Particular Immigrant Juveniles (SIJs) who should not but in a position to apply for adjustment of standing resulting from visa unavailability. SIJ is a classification that gives a pathway to lawful everlasting residence for minors who’ve been abused, deserted, or uncared for by a mother or father, and requires a discovering by a juvenile court docket choose that the kid can’t be reunified together with his or her mother or father(s). This coverage alert represented a marked departure from earlier USCIS coverage, pursuant to which USCIS mechanically carried out deferred motion determinations for juveniles with SIJ classification who couldn’t but modify standing due to immigrant visa quantity unavailability. If USCIS decided {that a} noncitizen with SIJ classification warranted a positive train of discretion, deferred motion was granted for a interval of 4 years. Noncitizens with SIJ classification who had been granted deferred motion had been additionally eligible to use for work authorization for this era.
Deferred motion was obligatory as a cease hole -solution because of the retrogression within the employment-based fourth desire class, which prevented SIJ candidates from submitting I-485 functions. With out the good thing about deferred motion, SIJ candidates are topic to elimination from the US regardless that they’ve authorized SIJ petitions except the precedence date turns into present. Deferred motion permits the chief department to supply ameliorative reduction when there are gaps that might in any other case render the noncitizen susceptible to elimination. Congress laid out a transparent path to lawful everlasting residency for SIJS beneficiaries, however visa backlogs trigger years-long delays earlier than they will apply for his or her inexperienced playing cards.
Pursuant to the June 6, 2025 coverage below the Trump administration, “USCIS will not take into account granting deferred motion on a case-by case foundation to aliens categorized as SIJs who’re ineligible to use for adjustment of standing solely resulting from unavailable immigrant visas”, although people who’ve already been granted deferred motion and employment authorization based mostly on a SIJ classification will usually retain it. As a justification for this coverage change, USCIS said that:
“Whereas Congress possible didn’t envision that SIJ petitioners must wait years earlier than a visa grew to become out there, Congress additionally didn’t expressly allow deferred motion and associated employment authorization for this inhabitants. Neither an alien having an authorized Petition for Amerasian, Widow(er), or Particular Immigrant (Type I-360) with out an instantly out there immigrant visa out there nor a juvenile court docket willpower regarding the perfect curiosity of the SIJ are sufficiently compelling causes, supported by any current statute or regulation, to proceed to supply a deferred motion course of for this immigrant class.”
This coverage change was rapidly challenged by a gaggle of youth and authorized providers organizations within the U.S. District Courtroom for the Jap District of New York in A.C.R. et al. v. Noem et al., No.1:25-cv-3962. Of their criticism, these organizations argued that USCIS’ abrupt recission of deferred motion for noncitizens with SIJ classification was arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Process Act (APA) as a result of USCIS failed to claim an inexpensive clarification for its reversal of the prior coverage, inflicting irreparable hurt to juveniles with SIJ classification who are actually in danger for deportation.
On November 19, 2025, the court docket granted a keep of the recission of SIJ deferred motion. The court docket discovered that the plaintiffs are more likely to succeed on the deserves of their declare that the coverage reversal was illegal for a number of causes, together with as a result of the federal government didn’t take into account reliance pursuits or alternate options to rescinding the coverage. The court docket additionally dominated that, absent the keep, the plaintiffs had been more likely to face irreparable hurt due to the heightened danger of elimination they might face with out the safety of deferred motion. The court docket deferred a ruling on class certification and selected to not grant reduction within the type of a preliminary injunction. The court docket adopted the logic superior by the Supreme Courtroom in Division of Homeland Safety v. Regents of the College of California, 591 U.S. 1 (2020), a case involving a problem to DHS’ 2017 termination of the Deferred Motion for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. In Regents, the Courtroom criticized the primary Trump administration for not factoring in reliance pursuits when terminating the DACA program. In reliance on the DACA program, DACA recipients had enrolled in instructional applications, began careers and companies, bought houses, and married and had youngsters in the US. Within the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts famous penalties of the termination would additionally “radiate outward” to affect DACA recipients’ households, together with their U.S. citizen youngsters, and to their instructional establishments and employers.
Citing Regents, the court docket in A-C-R-, discovered that “USCIS failed to think about reliance pursuits and fairly apparent alternate options right here, possible rendering its resolution to rescind SIJS-DA arbitrary and capricious”. USCIS had superior two justifications for not taking reliance pursuits into consideration, first that “the requirement to think about reliance pursuits doesn’t apply when an company ‘credibly believes that the prior coverage is a violation of the separation of powers doctrine’”, and, second, that the reliance pursuits implicated in SIJ deferred motion weren’t severe. The court docket didn’t discover both compelling. In response to USCIS’ first justification, the court docket famous that “an company should all the time take into account severe reliance pursuits, even when it concludes an earlier coverage was illegal”. In response to the second competition, the court docket famous that juveniles with SIJ classification, like DACA recipients, could have enrolled in instructional applications or begun careers in reliance on this system, and that the implications of the recission would equally “radiate outwards” to affect households, colleges, and employers. The court docket additionally famous that even state governments could possibly be impacted by the recission, as SIJ recipients might turn into extra reliant on state little one welfare applications and advantages.
A-C-R supplies some hope that deferred motion applications can keep in place if the administration doesn’t think about the reliance pursuits of the stakeholders. Along with DACA and SIJ deferred motion, one other program grants deferred motion to noncitizen employees who witness or expertise labor rights violations. Though the Fifth Circuit has additionally dominated that DACA could not have been approved below the INA, a remaining resolution has but to be made on the lawfulness of DACA or different deferred motion applications. Even the court docket in A-C-R- order referenced the DACA resolution, and expressed openness to the federal government’s declare that its “questionable legality was possible cause sufficient for USCIS to hunt to rescind the coverage.”
The manager department has all the time been in a position to grant deferred motion, and Congress has by no means explicitly precluded the grant of deferred motion. It’s hoped that the chief department’s skill to grant deferred motion is preserved as such a treatment is important to fill gaps below the immigration system that might in any other case depart susceptible noncitizens topic to elimination. Even when the present Trump administration is averse to deferred motion, it ought to be preserved for extra enlightened, immigrant- pleasant administrations to supply ameliorative reduction to susceptible noncitizens in an imperfect immigration system.
*Kaitlyn Field is a Companion at Cyrus D. Mehta & Companions PLLC.
