Seems like he got super unlucky. Still, less than 1% of people get denied. Not sure what went wrong. I'd imagine he goes to his Rep/Senator and they make a ruckus. He seems like a good dude - he's a firefighter.

I got full access through school:

A former Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipient who challenged the denial of his renewal application isn’t likely to win at trial, a federal judge in Washington state found.

Christian Herrera, a firefighter with the Washington Department of Natural Resources, had completed the required schooling and hadn’t committed any crimes that would disqualify him for DACA. Yet U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services denied his renewal application outright without providing any notice, opportunity to respond, or even an explanation, he said.

The agency did nothing wrong in taking that approach, Judge Thomas O. Rice of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington said May 8.

The ruling is a rare DACA win for the Trump administration, which has been on the defensive in a series of lawsuits challenging both the decision to terminate the Obama-era program and the revocations of DACA in individual cases. The litigation over the termination of DACA—which remains alive by lower court order—was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court last year, but the justices haven’t yet decided whether to take up the cases.

DACA provides protection from deportation and work permits to young, undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.

More Denials Ahead?
The decision also creates a potential window for the administration to deny more DACA renewal applications outright.

That’s what concerns Herrera’s attorney, Héctor Quiroga of the Quiroga Law Office in Spokane Valley, Wash. Nothing about Herrera’s background or the process he used to apply has changed, yet he was “denied with no explanation whatsoever,” he said.

If the government has that kind of discretion and can never be challenged, “that’s a very, very scary thing,” Quiroga said.

The move also might be an attempt to do an end-run around the federal court orders requiring the administration to continue to accept DACA renewal applications while the lawsuits over the program’s termination move through the courts, he said. If the government is allowed just to use its discretion to deny everyone’s renewal applications, “why have the program then?” Quiroga asked.

A representative for the USCIS wasn’t immediately available for comment.

DACA approval rates remain high, however. So far in fiscal year 2019, which began last October, the USCIS has approved 151,129 DACA renewals and denied only 1,253. There were 47,207 applications still pending as of Feb. 28.

There are some 673,340 active DACA participants as of that date, 38,710 of whom have renewal applications pending.

Standard Operating Procedures
The revocation cases, like Herrera’s, focus on whether the USCIS followed its standard operating procedures in deciding whether or not to grant the DACA applications. That focus has provided the hook needed to challenge what otherwise would be a completely discretionary decision that isn’t subject to review by a court.

But even though Rice could hear the case, he said the USCIS’ procedures don’t require the agency in all instances to send a request for more evidence or a notice of intent to deny. The agency could determine that it had enough information and still exercise discretion to deny the application, he said.

Herrera also doesn’t have a right to DACA that would require the USCIS to provide due process before denying access to the program’s benefits, Rice said.

Clayton Cook-Mowery of the Quiroga Law Office also represented Herrera. The Justice Department represented the USCIS.

The case is Herrera v. McAleenan , 2019 BL 166772, E.D. Wash., No. 2:19-cv-00094, 5/8/19 .

(Updated with additional reporting throughout.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Laura D. Francis in Washington at [email protected]