DACA Recipients’ Access to Health Care: 2025 Report

This fact sheet reports on findings from a 2024 survey of 433 DACA recipients administered by Tom K. Wong of the University of California, San Diego; United We Dream; the National Immigration Law Center; and the Center for American Progress. In this survey, the authors asked a comprehensive set of questions about DACA recipients’ access to health care and services, among other issues. The research indicates that respondents continue to face significant health disparities. This is the fourth iteration of this report.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is a program that was introduced in 2012 by President Obama. President Biden issued an updated rule ten years later to strengthen the program. It allows certain immigrants who grew up in the U.S. from childhood to seek temporary protection from deportation and to have the ability to work. For over a decade, DACA has been life changing for more than 835,000 young people. However, constant attacks have forced DACA recipients to live in uncertainty as the legality of the program lies in the crosshairs of an anti-immigrant agenda.

In recent years, DACA has faced legal challenges. As of publication in June 2025, current DACA recipients – across the U.S.- can still renew their DACA while the most recent case in Texas awaits a decision on remand from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. While The Fifth Circuit found on January 17, 2025 that major parts of the Biden Administration’s DACA rule were unlawful, it limited the impact of its ruling in key ways, confining the ruling to future grants of work authorization for DACA recipients in Texas only, and keeping the stay pending appeal in place. This means current DACA recipients across the U.S. can still renew their DACA, and at least outside of Texas, their work authorization, which would make it easier to access employer-sponsored health insurance. DACA recipients have been uniquely barred from accessing health coverage outside of employer-sponsored insurance. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) allows lawfully present immigrants to enroll in private health insurance on the marketplaces and receive financial assistance in the form of premium tax credits. However, soon after DACA was established, the Department of Health and Human Services excluded DACA recipients, unlike other recipients of deferred action, from the regulatory definition of deferred action. DACA recipients are also categorically excluded from Medicaid eligibility.