A federal appeals court has halted the president's attempts to end DACA while lawsuits over the matter play out in court.

The ruling is a small victory for DACA recipients and their supporters, but the real test comes as the Supreme Court is now expected to make a final ruling.

Back in September, President Donald Trump's administration announced plans to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in early 2019. The Obama-era program gives deportation protection to immigrants brought into the country illegally as children.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed Thursday with a lower court's ruling preventing the Trump administration from ending DACA. A final decision on this case would impact 700,000 DACA recipients, some living here in the Hudson Valley, who say they want permanent legal status instead of being sent back to the country they were born in and in some cases a place they don't remember.

"There is nothing about me that isn't American," says Gabriel Guambana, of Ossining. "I speak the same, I have the accent, I've adapted to the culture in every single way. I am 100 percent American."

Lawyers for the Trump administration have already asked the Supreme Court to review the issue.