DACA, which was put into place by President Obama in 2012, shields undocumented individuals who were brought into the country as children from deportation and allows them to obtain work authorization.
The Trump administration rescinded DACA in 2017, and at the time then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions claimed that DACA "denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens."
Diana Calderon, a student who has benefited from the DACA immigration program, introduces President Obama at the White House, October 15, 2015. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst ·Jonathan Ernst / reuters
President Biden reinstated DACA upon taking office, though the policy is facing challenges in court and its fate remains unclear.
More than a decade after it was passed, the report from The University of Delaware states: “DACA did not harm the labor market outcomes of native born workers. There is suggestive evidence that the policy had a positive impact on the fraction of natives working.”
“That’s because when a new worker enters the economy, they end up creating other jobs for other workers elsewhere,” David Bier, immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute, told Yahoo Finance. “I think the nativist version of events is really divorced from economic reality. They treat an immigrant worker coming into the economy completely differently than they treat a U.S. worker entering the economy, when an economist looking at the situation would say the economic effect is the same and it doesn’t matter whether they’re born here or born somewhere else. The end result is going to be the same, which is ultimately a benefit overall to our well-being and living standard.”
Dreamers 'have already been participating in the U.S. economy'
According to data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), there are currently 589,660 DACA recipients as of Sept. 30, 2022. While they are spread out across the U.S., a large number reside in California and Texas.
Most DACA holders are under the age of 30 and are originally from Mexico, followed by El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Peru.
“DACA is a very interesting policy to think about economically,” Emily Battaglia, author of the report and assistant professor of economics at the University of Delaware, told Yahoo Finance. “By construction of the policy, the cohort of DACA-eligible immigrants are not new immigrants. They’ve been in the country for many years and have already been participating in the U.S. economy.”
Data from FWD.us, a bipartisan organization that advocates for immigration reform, found that DACA recipients contribute roughly $11.7 billion to the U.S. economy each year. This includes roughly $566.9 million in mortgage payments, $2.3 billion in rental payments, and $3.1 billion in state and local taxes on an annual basis, according to the Center for American Progress.
“We rely on Dreamers and their service to our nation as doctors, teachers, or members of our military," Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said in a statement to Yahoo Finance. "They support our country in these roles while also paying billions in federal taxes annually, which supports programs like Medicare or Social Security. ... We are better off for the contributions of Dreamers, and a path forward to lawful permanent residence is long overdue.”
FWD.us data also shows that 77% of DACA holders are actively working and 91% finished high school.
Bier explained that DACA's employment authorization allows these individuals to do more productive work instead of taking on lower-paying positions.
“That’s a benefit to the economy and to U.S. job growth because their productivity means higher wages, and that translates to more consumer spending that’s creating jobs at other businesses in other industries,” Bier said. “Obviously they’re filling certain positions in the economy, but the fact is that they also create demand for other jobs elsewhere. They produce things of value for a company. The company pays them money, then they buy housing and consumer goods and services elsewhere. That creates jobs for U.S. workers in other positions.”
As a result, the presence of Dreamers may actually be a boon to the U.S. workforce.
DACA holders are as productive as many U.S. citizens, if not more so, according to FWD.us data. For those ages 24-31, the age range that a majority of Dreamers fall into, 85% of DACA recipients participate in the U.S. labor force versus 82% of U.S. citizens. Within that age range, the median annual income for DACA recipients is $23,000 versus $20,000 for U.S. citizens.
"There is suggestive evidence that the [DACA] policy had a positive impact on the fraction of natives working," the University of Delaware study stated. "The largest estimates suggest increasing a local area's DACA-eligible population by three individuals is associated with an increase of one native working. This increase in the fraction of natives working stems from drawing individuals out of unemployment and from individuals entering the labor force."
Bier explained that employers creating more jobs to accommodate the larger population has increased productivity, which in turn "creates demand for more workers, so there’s no downside to having a larger immigration flow where more people are authorized to work.”
“So there’s no net effect because if a worker comes and they produce something of value... that’s creating jobs across the country," he said. "It might not be at the same company or might not be the same exact job, but they are still creating those positions. And that’s why despite the fact that the labor force has doubled in size since World War II, we don’t have mass unemployment and we’re not all poorer as a consequence.”
This post was updated with a statement from the office of Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL).
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Adriana Belmonte is a reporter and editor covering politics and health care policy for Yahoo Finance. You can follow her on Twitter @adrianambells and reach her at [email protected].
