Authors bring together theories of liminal legality and stress process to offer a framework for understanding how expansions in the legal rights of a highly politicized and vulnerable social group can be initially beneficial but can attenuate due to renewed or new stress events, chronic stressors, and anticipatory stressors. Authors use the case of Latina/o immigrant youth who transitioned from undocumented legal status to temporarily protected status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Adult and teen surveys from the 2007–2018 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) waves were used.

Findings: Analyses of representative California statewide survey data, combined with surveys and in-depth interviews with DACA recipients, suggest that without full social and structural inclusion, legal transitions that expand rights will produce short-term psychological benefits that do not hold up over time.