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The Trump administration is continuing its attacks on DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, that has given deportation relief and work permits to immigrants who came to the United States as children. The Board of Immigration Appeals — an administrative court within the Justice Department — recently ruled that DACA status is not enough to spare someone from deportation, a decision that sets a precedent potentially putting hundreds of thousands of people at risk.

Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez from Illinois, whose husband is a former DACA recipient, calls the BIA decision “very concerning” and part of a larger effort “weaponizing the court system” against immigrants. She says Congress must act and pass legislation to end the legal limbo of DACA recipients and millions of other immigrants.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show with Trump’s repeated attacks on DACA. That’s the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has granted deportation relief and work permits to an estimated half a million immigrants who came to the United States as children. The targeting of people with DACA has intensified under Trump’s second term, with nearly 300 DACA recipients detained last year. Of that group, at least 174 have been deported, many after living nearly all their lives in the United States.

María de Jesús Estrada Juárez is among them. She came to the U.S. at the age of 15 and had been living here in the United States for over 20 years when the Trump administration detained her in February despite having DACA. She was taken during her green card appointment and deported to Mexico within 24 hours. A judge later deemed her deportation illegal and ordered her returned to the United States in March. Juárez spoke to PBS News from her home in California earlier this month.

DHS Attacks DACA Recipients, Tells Them to Self-Deport

MARÍA DE JESÚS ESTRADA JUÁREZ: We show up to the appointment at USCIS in Sacramento. We walk into the office. We have my interview. At the end of my interview, the agent, the interview agent, asked — told me that he needed to speak to his supervisor. And sooner than I know, they knock on the door, and I got arrested. And I was told that I was being detained and I was going to get deported back to Mexico. … I know that the deferred action, DACA, it protects people that were brought into the country when they were children, from deportation. That’s what the DACA program was created for.

MARÍA DE JESÚS ESTRADA JUÁREZ: We show up to the appointment at USCIS in Sacramento. We walk into the office. We have my interview. At the end of my interview, the agent, the interview agent, asked — told me that he needed to speak to his supervisor. And sooner than I know, they knock on the door, and I got arrested. And I was told that I was being detained and I was going to get deported back to Mexico. … I know that the deferred action, DACA, it protects people that were brought into the country when they were children, from deportation. That’s what the DACA program was created for.

AMY GOODMAN: DACA was enacted by the Obama administration in 2012 and has been at the center of ongoing contentious litigation, with advocates worried about the program’s future.

Well, a new decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals — that’s BIA — may make it easier for the Trump administration to continue deporting DACA recipients. The new precedent decision by a three-judge panel outlined that DACA no longer guarantees protection........

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