When Katia Escobar finally got the money to pay her application fee for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a federal program that provides some undocumented immigrants work permits and temporarily protects them from deportation, it was a moment of relief for the 18-year-old, who has lived as an undocumented immigrant in California and Texas since she was a child.

She was eager to find a job to help her pay expenses as she started classes at the University of Houston. After she dropped her application with a $495 check for the processing fees in the mailbox, Escobar anxiously waited for an acceptance letter.

But four months later, she received a notice saying her application would not be processed because a federal judge in Houston had ruled that DACA was illegal.

As part of U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen’s order, immigration officials could process DACA renewals but had to stop accepting new applications for the Obama-era program that defers deportation for some qualifying young immigrants who were brought to the country as children and provides them with a renewable two-year work permit.

“At that moment, it felt like I was back to my starting point. All of my efforts to help support my family, start a new chapter in my life and get new opportunities, it all crumbled away in an instant,” Escobar said.

In 2018, Texas and other Republican-led states filed a lawsuit against the federal government arguing that the Obama administration overreached its power by creating an immigration program without Congress’ approval. The lawsuit has led to a yearslong legal battle.

Now the program, which has approved more than 800,000 people over the past decade — including 101,000 current DACA recipients who live in Texas — could be canceled altogether. Across the country, 93,000 first-time applicants like Escobar have had their DACA applications halted as a result of Hanen’s ruling.

After Hanen’s ruling last year, the Biden administration appealed his order to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. After arguments from both sides to the appellate judges in July, legal analysts and immigrant rights advocates expect the three-judge panel to affirm Hanen’s ruling in the coming days or weeks — which could scrap the program and likely would prevent recipients from renewing their DACA status.

Anticipating a loss in the appeals court, the Biden administration this week codified DACA into regulatory law and rescinded the 2012 memo by then-U.S. Department of Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano that created DACA — a legal move to help counter Hanen’s ruling, which said the government hadn’t properly implemented the immigration program in 2012.

“Thanks to DACA, we have been enriched by young people who contribute so much to our communities and our country,” Alejandro N. Mayorkas, secretary for Homeland Security, said last week. “Yet, we need Congress to pass legislation that provides an enduring solution for the young Dreamers who have known no country other than the United States as their own.”

Opponents of the program say it rewards migrants who broke the law by entering the country illegally and creates an incentive for others to do the same.

“This lawsuit was about the rule of law – not the reasoning behind any immigration policy,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office filed the 2018 lawsuit, said last year in a statement. “The district court recognized that only Congress has the authority to write immigration laws, and the president is not free to disregard those duly-enacted laws as he sees fit.”

Immigrant rights advocates have been pushing Congress and President Joe Biden to come up with a permanent solution. They want Congress to create a pathway for citizenship for immigrants who are DACA eligible and their family members who are undocumented. Biden has proposed a plan to overhaul the country’s immigration laws, including creating a pathway to citizenship for current DACA recipients. But Congress has not acted on it.

“DACA has provided temporary protection for hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their families who have built their lives here. They are integral to our society, and while DACA has given some protection to Dreamers, it is not long term,” said Edna Yang, co-executive director of American Gateways, a Texas-based organization that provides immigration services to low-income people.