Leslie Berestein Rojas | KPCC

California immigrants who hoped to benefit from President Obama’s executive order are disappointed in a federal appeals court ruling against it this week.

The president’s proposal would give temporary legal status to as many as 1.5 million Californians. 

Guadalupe Vega has lived in the US 25 years. She’s raised three children here. Her youngest is a U.S. citizen. This would have qualified her for relief under Obama’s immigration plan. Now, she'll have to keep waiting.

"I think it’s clipping our wings a little bit, our hopes of getting ahead," she says.

Vega's oldest daughter, Alejandra Bello, got temporary legal status three years ago through deferred action. She had hoped her mom would have the same benefits.

"It was very upsetting," she says. "I mean, a lot of these parents, they are hard workers."

Not everyone is disappointed. Chapman University law professor John Eastman agrees with the court.

"What the Obama administration has done here is largely make pages and pages and pages of the immigration laws completely superfluous," he says. 

The Obama administration has said it will appeal to the Supreme Court.