Last Updated: February 19, 2026
IMPORTANT UPDATE: On February 3, 2026, Plaintiffs appealed the court’s denial of their motion to clarify or reconsider part of the November 19, 2025, order staying the rescission of the SIJS Deferred Action Policy.
A.C.R. et al. v. Noem et al., No. 1:25-cv-03962 (E.D.N.Y), is a proposed nationwide class action challenging the Department of Homeland Security’s termination of a 2022 policy that provided deferred action to many children and youth who had been granted special immigrant juvenile status (SIJS) due to parental abuse, neglect, abandonment, or similar harms. Congress laid out a clear path to lawful permanent residency for SIJS beneficiaries, but visa backlogs cause years-long delays before they can apply for their green cards. The SIJS Deferred Action Policy provided protection from deportation and eligibility to apply for work permits to SIJS beneficiaries during the prolonged wait to apply for lawful permanent residency.
The plaintiffs — nine immigrant youth and two legal services providers, Central American Refugee Center (CARECEN-NY) and Centro Legal de la Raza — are represented by Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), the National Immigration Project, Public Counsel, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, and Lowenstein Sandler LLP. The complaint and motion for preliminary injunction, filed July 17, 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, assert that terminating the SIJS Deferred Action Policy without notice and without justification violated the Administrative Procedure Act, exposing thousands of SIJS beneficiaries to the risk of deportation – even though state courts have determined that children granted SIJS should not be returned to their countries of origin. The lawsuit seeks to reinstate the 2022 SIJS Deferred Action Policy, which has protected approximately 200,000 children and youth from deportation.
November 19, 2025 — Court stays rescission of the SIJS Deferred Action Policy
In a November 19 order, the court granted a stay of the government’s rescission of the 2022 SIJS Deferred Action Policy and ordered that “the government must therefore conduct deferred-action and employment authorization adjudications pursuant to the 2022 Policy Alert.”
The court found that the Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the policy reversal was unlawful for several reasons, including that the government did not consider reliance interests or alternatives to rescinding the policy. The court also ruled that, absent the stay, the Plaintiffs were likely to face irreparable harm because of the heightened risk of removal they would face without the protection of deferred action. The opinion did not grant everything the Plaintiffs requested, as the court deferred a ruling on class certification and chose not to require that deferred action adjudications take place within any particular timeframe. Finally, the court enjoined the government from removing the named Plaintiffs during the pendency of the litigation.
On December 3, 2025, Plaintiffs moved the court to clarify or reconsider one aspect of its November 19 stay order. Specifically, Plaintiffs asked the Court to clarify that its November order required USCIS to follow its guidance on SIJS Deferred Action as set forth in the USCIS Policy Manual prior to the 2025 rescission. The court denied this motion, and on January 14, 2026, issued a decision explaining its denial. The court confirmed that its stay order does not require USCIS to “treat SIJ status as a ‘strong factor that weighs heavily in favor of granting deferred action,’” as previously required by the pre-rescission USCIS Policy Manual, nor to follow any other provisions of that Policy Manual that exceed the scope of USCIS’s March 2022 Policy Alert. The sole exception is for persons whose SIJS petitions were approved after April 6, 2025, and before June 6, 2025—the date USCIS publicly announced the rescission of the 2022 SIJS Deferred Action Policy. This group is entitled to a deferred action adjudication in accordance with the pre-rescission Policy Memo, including that a SIJS approval be considered a particularly strong positive factor in favor of granting deferred action.
On February 3, 2026, Plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit the part of the court’s decision that subjects individuals whose SIJS was approved on or after June 6, 2025, to a significantly less favorable standard for deferred action—one that is inconsistent with the court’s order staying the government’s rescission of the SIJS Deferred Action Policy.
On February 9, 2026, the government informed the district court that USCIS “intends to revisit its deferred action program for individuals with SIJ classification and determine if the program will be continued as is, revised, or terminated” within approximately 60 days.