A significant segment of Silicon Valley's population is facing a new hurdle.
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As they've gotten older, the children of immigrants that moved to the area for work in the tech industry are aging out of their visa protections before their green cards come through, a process that can take years, or even decades.
Many are now being lost in a bureaucratic and administrative purgatory, waiting for their status to change.
"The problem is there’s a long waiting list – many, many years – for that immigration status," said Bill Hing, a law professor at the University of San Francisco and Director of the Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic.
"Children that they have that are under 21 automatically are included," he said. "But once their children achieve the age of 21, they age out."
"They don't get to be what's called a derivative beneficiary," said Hing.
Then, those young adults become eligible for deportation once their student visas expire or if they're designated "overstays."
The issue has yet to be remedied by election officials.
"Congress hasn't acted to try to address the backlog or this aging out problem for the children," said Hing.
While there has been a push for the Biden administration to make a change similar to DACA, it wouldn't be a permanent fix, according to Hing. A new administration could come in and just reverse the change.
"It's not an action by Congress," he said. "And they would just be in that limbo status."
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