Salma Veras
Professor Ellen Nicholas
English Comp 1020
October 21, 2017
DACA
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or more commonly refered to as DACA, was established by the Obama Administration in 2012. The “Dreamers” program allows minors who illegally entered the country to stay with a permit of two years. This also allows them to get a work permit. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is an extremely helpful bill passed by the Obama Administration and despite its helpfulness, the program still has some people who don’t support it.
In 2017, DACA had 800,000 people under its protective wing when the Trump Administration and the Department of Homeland Security rescinded the Obama Administration’s expansion. His decision to do this was backed by the allegations that Dreamers are stealing jobs from other Americans. The rescission of the bill left these 800,000 young people uncertain about their futures. The program was given a six month delay so that Congress may find a way to bring the program back into full swing for good. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., is among those who support ending DACA because it has "encouraged more illegal immigration and contributed to the surge of unaccompanied minors and families seeking to enter the U.S. illegally." (Bier) Statements like this portray a misunderstanding of who is eligible for deportation relief under the program. “DACA applies only to immigrants who entered before their 16th birthdays and who have lived in the country continuously since at least June 15, 2007 – more than a decade ago. No one entering now can apply.” (Bier)
Majority of the Mexican and hispanic descended applicants come from countries who all share something in common; high violence rates, much higher than violence rates anywhere in America. A common myth about DACA is that completely repealing it would benefit taxpayers. “Sessions also argued that ending DACA "protects taxpayers." But the opposite is true. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), first-generation immigrants who enter the United States as children (including all DACA recipients) pay, on average, more in taxes over their lifetimes than they receive in benefits, regardless of their education level. DACA recipients end up contributing more than the average, because they are not eligible for any federal means-tested welfare: cash assistance, food stamps, Medicaid, health-care tax credits or anything else.” (Bier) Another common misconception about DACA is that repealing it is protecting local communities from “criminals.” “These allegations are false and there is evidence to support it. DACA repeal, the attorney general further claimed, "saves lives" and "protects communities." He implied that DACA "put our nation at risk of crime." But DACA participants are not criminals. “Unauthorized immigrants – the applicant pool for DACA – are much less likely to end up in prison, indicating lower levels of criminality. More important, to participate in DACA, applicants must pass a background check. They have to live here without committing a serious offense. If they are arrested, DACA can be taken away even without a conviction.” (Bier) In addition to the false claims the Trump Administration is making about DACA being a safety and tax issue, they have also reported that DACA takes jobs away from minority Americans.
Trump has come out and said that the undocumented immigrants under the protection of DACA are taking jobs away from hispanic and black Americans. Several people, including Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House Press Secretary, have argued his statements, saying: "It's a known fact that there are over 4 million unemployed Americans in the same age group as those that are recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program; that over 950,000 of those are African-Americans in the same age group; over 870,000 unemployed Hispanics in the same age group," Sanders said during Tuesday's press briefing. "Those are large groups of people that are unemployed that could possibly have those jobs." (Jan) The problem is that we cannot assume that each group has the same education level as the other, which is a reasonable explanation as to why maybe more DACA members are employed than legal minority Americans. However, the argument for that is, if the hispanic or black Americans that were born in this country have the same education level as a child under DACA does, why does the DACA child have a job and the Americans-born citizen doesn’t if they’re capable of the same things. “There is just no compelling proof that immigration — legal or illegal — "squeezes out native-born workers in any systematic way," Holtz-Eakin said. "We've experienced waves of immigration and still, on average, reached full employment.”
“The number of jobs in the United States is not fixed. An influx of immigrant workers generates economic growth and employment opportunities by increasing productivity”, said Jackie Varas, director of immigration and trade policy at American Action Forum. "Many DACA recipients are also more skilled than other immigrants because they possess a college education, so they don't compete with low-skilled Americans." (Jan) The only defense Trump has is to pit minority groups against each other, with no justifiable reason to do so.
When Trump was elected into office, he put a negative connotation on the word “immigrant.” An immigrant isn’t just someone who is hear illegally, it just means that they were not born a U.S. citizen. During his campaign before he was elected, he made false promises about reducing the immigration to America by making Mexico pay for a wall along the Texas border, putting a ban on Muslim refugees and threatening to deport thousands of people. A result of this was one day, there was a protest where all immigrants were challenged not to go to work so that America could truly see how lost America would be without them. All of Trump’s negativity towards immigrants and the DACA program fails to do one thing: hide just exactly how helpful this program is. “In judging its effect on employment and poverty, economists have found that DACA was a success. But what about health? The Article by Atheendar Venkataramani and colleagues shows clearly that DACA has substantially improved the mental health of eligible individuals.” (Mcknee) This ties into the fact that hispanic immigrants who come to America come from countries with high crime rates. They are finally away from the violence, and being a part of DACA gives them peace of mind. “Venkataramani and colleagues drew a sample of people of Hispanic ethnicity (the main beneficiaries of the policy) from a large national survey. Those who met the educational and age criteria, and were thus eligible, were deemed to have been exposed to the policy. Those who were otherwise similar but not eligible formed a comparison group…individuals eligible for the DACA program had large and clinically meaningful reductions in depressive symptoms after it was implemented.” (Mcknee) Donald Trump tries to drown these immigrants in negativity calling them names and threatens to deport them, but when the Obama Administration put DACA into effect, it was to assist those living in fear that they would get deported from the country they so badly needed to be in; to be away from the violence, to live the Americans Dream.
Many DACA applicants don’t remember their home country. To them, America is all they’ve ever known. For Trump to try and take this away from hundreds of thousands of people who are here to get a good education, work, and steer clear of violence is causing controversy everywhere. Statistically, these people are not criminals and they’re not slackers. Luis Alcauter, a DACA recipient applied for the program when he was in college. Recalling when he was able to legally go about his days in America, he said, “Obtaining a driver’s license, a work permit and a social security number are things some people take for granted, but they empowered me. Being able to drive and to work allowed me to apply to jobs I wouldn’t consider before. I felt limitless. I found myself interning with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute in the Capitol. I now work at a consulting firm and have contributed to the successful election of eight Latino candidates to Congress, including two who were formerly undocumented.” (rubio,) This is just one of the many DACA success stories, and further evidence that these people are here to do good.
In conclusion, Donald Trump and the Department of Homeland Security in 2017 rescinded the DREAM Act put into place by the Obama Administration in 2012. In the five years this program has been running, hundreds of thousands of young people in America have been given a chance to live their lives in a good country without fear of being deported to a country they’ve never known. Despite claims that DACA encourages illegal immigrants, steals jobs from Americans, are criminals and rescinding the program for good would benefit taxpayers, it is still an incredibly beneficial program to young men and women across America.
Works Cited
Bier, David. "Five myths about DACA." Washington Post, 7 Sept. 2017. Opposing Viewpoints in Context,
jwupvdz.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A503708980/OVIC?
u=prov43712&xid=d2f24062. Accessed 11 Oct. 2017.
Jan, Tracy. "Analysis: No evidence 'dreamers' take away jobs from blacks, hispanics, despite
claims." Washington Post, 6 Sept. 2017. Opposing Viewpoints in Context,
jwupvdz.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A503577966
OVIC?u=prov43712&xid=352d5d1e. Accessed 11 Oct. 2017.
Mcknee, Martin, and David Stuckler. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Programme:
a Quasi-Experiment in Giving Hope to Migrants.
www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(17)30050-6/fulltext.