Immigration

To protect these children while they wait, the government adopted the SIJS Deferred Action Policy in 2022. Under the policy, SIJS recipients are automatically considered for deferred action that, if granted, protects them from deportation and allows them to apply for work authorization while they wait for a visa. On April 7, 2025, the government abruptly ended the policy—without notice, explanation, or consideration of the thousands of young people who relied on it—in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

Working with the National Immigration Project, Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), Public Counsel, and Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, our firm filed a nationwide class action challenging the unlawful termination of the policy, which left thousands at increased risk of deportation and without the ability to legally work while awaiting visas. We represent nine young immigrants and two legal services organizations and seek to reinstate the policy and restore the protections that had safeguarded roughly 200,000 vulnerable youth whose SIJS determinations already recognized that returning them to their home countries would be dangerous.

In November 2025, the court halted the policy's rescission, finding that the government likely acted unlawfully when it terminated the SIJS Deferred Action Policy without considering the harm to young people who had relied on the policy. The judge concluded that without court intervention, these young people would face serious and irreversible harm.

As a result, the 2022 SIJS Deferred Action Policy is back in effect. The government must once again make determinations on deferred action and work authorization requests, and our individual clients are protected from deportation while the case proceeds—restoring crucial stability and safety to children who have already survived profound hardship.

The court did not, however, require the government to fully restore its prior policy and approach for evaluating deferred action requests, which treated a SIJS grant as a "strong positive factor" favoring deferred action. We have appealed that portion of the ruling to ensure that SIJS recipients receive the full protection the law requires.