New DACA Bill Bans Sharing Applicant Data with ICE and Local Police, Protecting DREAMer Privacy

The Protect DREAMer Confidentiality Act of 2025 is straightforward: it puts up a serious firewall around the personal information submitted by applicants to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Essentially, if you applied for DACA after June 15, 2012, this bill mandates that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cannot hand over your application details—what the bill calls "Individual Application Information"—to immigration enforcement agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), or even to state and local police. The goal is to make sure the data you gave to apply for a temporary work permit isn't weaponized against you for general immigration enforcement.

The Privacy Shield: Who Can See Your Data

This legislation is a big deal for DACA recipients because it turns a policy that was often administrative into a hard legal requirement. The Secretary of Homeland Security is explicitly barred from automatically referring DACA cases or sharing applicant information with law enforcement agencies like ICE or the Department of Justice just because someone applied for DACA (SEC. 3). Think of it like this: your employer can’t just hand over your sensitive HR file to the police unless there’s a serious, specific reason. Here, the law tries to ensure that applying for DACA doesn't automatically put a target on your back.

The Narrow Exceptions: When the Wall Comes Down

While the bill creates a strong confidentiality rule, it isn't an absolute blackout. Your information can be shared, but only in three very specific, limited scenarios. First, if DHS needs to check for or stop fraudulent applications—which makes sense, they need to keep the program honest. Second, for "specific national security reasons that relate directly to your individual application." This is the most subjective exception, and it means the government has to connect the dots between your specific file and a genuine national security concern, not just a general threat. Third, information can be shared if authorities are investigating or prosecuting a "serious crime (a felony) that has nothing to do with your immigration status" (SEC. 3). This means if a DACA recipient is involved in, say, a major financial fraud case, law enforcement can access the necessary data, but they can’t use the DACA application to start a general deportation proceeding.

Real-World Impact: Less Fear, More Trust

For the young people who rely on DACA to work and go to school, this bill aims to reduce the fear that their personal information—addresses, family details, where they work—could be used to detain them or their family members. Before this, the confidentiality was often based on policy memos that could be changed by any administration. This bill codifies those protections into law. For law enforcement, this means they can’t use the DACA database as a fishing expedition for general immigration checks. They have to stick to the narrow exceptions: application fraud, a direct national security threat, or an unrelated felony investigation. This clarifies the rules of the road for everyone involved, ensuring that the information provided to gain protection under DACA is used strictly for administering that program, and not for general enforcement.