California Immigrant Youths Face Deportation Threat as Federal Protections Collapse

For many years, the Community Justice Alliance (CJA), a nonprofit legal aid organization with offices in Sacramento and Fresno, provided long-term support for immigrant youths, including unaccompanied minors who arrived in the U.S. before age 18 without legal status or a parent or guardian.

The group offered legal casework, leadership training, and weekly meetups, serving as what Executive Director Kristina McKibben-Sias called "a refuge" for these vulnerable young people. However, recent policy changes under the Trump administration have forced the organization to shift its focus to rapid-response emergency assistance to prevent detention and deportation.

At the heart of the crisis is the federal government's decision to rescind deferred action for youths with Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) status. SIJ status is a federal classification for immigrants under 21 who cannot reunite with one or both parents due to abuse, abandonment, or neglect.

For years, these youths were protected from deportation and could apply for work permits or green cards while remaining in the U.S. But in May 2025, U.S.

Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) ended deferred action for SIJ recipients and made it impossible to renew. Now, thousands are vulnerable.

“It's just a complete dismantling of every angle of protection that they've had,” McKibben-Sias said. The crackdown has intensified with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducting "wellness checks" on unaccompanied minors, which McKibben-Sias described as terrifying.

“We receive calls from children that are shaking because there are federal agents threatening to break down their door,” she said, tearing up. Since 2015, over half a million unaccompanied minors have entered the U.S., with about 80,000 living in California.

Two such youths, identified only as Y.M. and O.L.

to protect their immigration status, illustrate the human toll. Y.M., now 18, came from El Salvador at age 13 after suffering abuse.

She recently graduated high school and dreams of becoming a psychologist to help other victims. But she lives in fear: “I feel really scared on my way to school, that immigration officials might pick me up.” O.L., 19, emigrated from Guatemala at 14 hoping for better opportunities and dreams of starting a landscaping business.

He has not yet graduated high school, as the current immigration climate has made everything “impossible.”

Legal experts warn that the policy change puts hundreds of thousands of SIJ-approved youths at risk. “The Trump administration has put hundreds of thousands of young people with special immigrant juvenile status at risk of being deported before they can apply for their green cards,” said Ellie Norton of the National Immigration Project.

Rachel Davidson, a program director with the same group, added, “They’re in a years-long process that they were going through and they thought that they were protected.” The National Immigration Project and other organizations have sued the federal government to restore deferred action, arguing that federal code requires youths to be physically present in the U.S. to apply for SIJ protections, making deportation a permanent barrier to their legal status.

A long backlog for visa approvals and a quota system further compound the problem. Deferred action for these youths was only introduced in 2022; before that, most administrations did not prioritize deporting them.

But since January 2025, everything has changed. “Congress created special immigrant juvenile status as a pathway to permanent protection for young people who are extremely vulnerable,” Davidson said.

“If you interrupt the pathway by deporting them in the middle, that means you're not understanding the purpose of the statute, which is to protect them.” For now, youths like Y.M. and O.L.

face a deeply uncertain future in California, caught between their aspirations and a federal policy that has stripped away their protections.