The FACTS About DACA Dreamers

To love somebody who resembles you.
If you want an ode then join the endless queue

Of people who are good to their next of kin –
Who somehow love people with the same chin

And skin and religion and accent and eyes.
So you love your sibling? Big fucking surprise.

But how much do you love the strange and stranger?
Hey, Caveman, do you see only danger

When you peer into the night? Are you afraid
Of the country that exists outside of your cave?

Hey, Caveman, when are you going to evolve?
Are you still baffled by the way the earth revolves

Around the sun and not the other way around?
Are you terrified by the ever-shifting ground?

From “Hymn” by Sherman Alexie

(Author Sherman Alexie is the winner of the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award, the 2007 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the 2001 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, and a Special Citation for the 1994 PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Fiction.)

Who Are the Dreamers?

Those protected under DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood arrivals, are known as “Dreamers” (often spelled “DREAMers”).

DACA is an American immigration policy that allows some individuals with unlawful presence in the United States after being brought to the country as children to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and become eligible for a work permit in the U.S. To be eligible for the program, recipients cannot have felonies or serious misdemeanors on their records.

The policy, an executive branch memorandum, was announced by President Barack Obama on June 15, 2012. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began accepting applications for the program on August 15, 2012.

To apply, a Dreamer must have been younger than 31 on June 15, 2012, when the program began, and “undocumented,” lacking legal immigration status. They must have arrived in the U.S. before turning 16 and lived there continuously since June 2007.

These young immigrants were required to to be strictly vetted. This included undergoing criminal and security screenings and additional checks every 24 months. Some 700,000 young people in the U.S. are shielded from deportation by the DACA program.

Most Dreamers are from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras and the largest numbers live in California, Texas, Florida and New York. They range in age from 15 to 36, according to the White House.

While the majority of Dreamers are Latino, they are a diverse group and come from a multitude of countries and cultures. Seven of the top 24 countries for Dreamers are in Asia, Europe, or the Caribbean. Tens of thousands of young Dreamers come from South Korea, the Philippines, India, Jamaica, Tobago, Poland, Nigeria, Pakistan, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Guyana.

Education and Work

DACA recipients grew up in the United States and have established their lives and futures in the country. Beyond that, they are contributing to the economy in ways that benefit the entire nation. Center for American Progress DACA recipient arrived in the United States in 1999, when they were just 7 years old. More than one-third of DACA recipients, 37 percent, arrived before age 5.

Immigration advocates say that even though DACA recipients can’t receive federal aid, the program has made it much easier to get a college education. Sixteen states allow DACA students to pay in-state tuition at state universities; major scholarship funds like TheDream.us help Dreamers foot the tab for tuition (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recently donated $33 million), and DACA allows students to work jobs and earn money.

According to a University of California study in collaboration with the immigrant-advocacy group United We Dream and the left-leaning Center for American Progress, 45% of DACA recipients are in school, and nearly three-quarters of those are pursuing a bachelor’s degree or higher. Of the group that isn’t currently in school, many have already graduated.

(Charlotte Alter/Lorain. “A Dreamer’s Life.” Time. March 6m 2018.)

Over the past five years, 91% of DACA recipients have found gainful employment, and are currently working for companies across the country. The largest occupation groups for DACA recipients are food preparation and office and administrative support at 66,000 workers each, as well as sales at 61,000 workers. Other notable fields include management and business occupations, in which 28,000 DACA recipients are employed; education and training occupations, with 16,000 DACA recipients employed; and health care practitioner and support occupations, with 27,000 DACA recipients employed.

These individuals work in different sectors of the economy too. According to the CAP analysis of ACS microdata, nearly 6,000 DACA recipients are self-employed in an incorporated business, while 25,000 work in nonprofit organizations and 22,000 work in the public sector.

( Wong, T., Rosas, G., Luna, A., Manning, H., Reyna, A., O’Shea, P., Jawetz, T. and Wolgin, P. DACA Recipients’ Economic and Educational Gains Continue to Grow. Center for American Progress. 2017.)

900 DACA recipients serve in the military. These individuals are part of the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) Pilot Program. The Department of Defense is coordinating with the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security (DHS) regarding any impact a change in policy may have for DACA recipients.

Economic Impact

DACA recipients and their households pay $5.7 billion in federal taxes and $3.1 billion in state and local taxes annually. In addition to this, DACA recipients boost Social Security and Medicare through payroll taxes. DACA recipients and their households hold a combined $24.1 billion in spending power – or income remaining after paying taxes – each year.

As community members, DACA recipients make substantial rental and mortgage payments, much of which goes directly into their local economies. DACA recipients own 59,000 homes and are directly responsible for $613.8 million in annual mortgage payments. Rental payments are even more staggering: DACA recipients pay $2.3 billion in rent to their landlords each year

(CAP analysis of 2017 1-year American Community Survey microdata,

accessed via the University of Minnesota’s IPUMS USA.)

DACA Revocation

Individuals who pose a public safety threat due to their criminal history or gang affiliation are subject to DACA revocation Only 0.2% of DACA enrollees have had their status revoked because of criminal or gang activity.

A Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesperson said nearly 90 percent of DACA revocations were the result of participants being linked to “alien smuggling, assaultive offenses, domestic violence, drug offenses, DUI, larceny and thefts, criminal trespass and burglary, sexual offenses with minors, other sex offenses and weapons offenses.” Roughly 3 percent were for alleged “gang activity,” and 7 percent were for a variety of relatively minor offenses, such as making a false claim of citizenship or collecting three or more misdemeanor convictions.

The exact nature of the crimes triggering DACA revocation and subsequent deportation remains unclear. For example, a “drug offense” could amount to nothing more than “a dime bag of marijuana possession.” Citizenship and Immigration Services declined to provide a detailed breakdown of the offenses.

Trump signed an executive order during his first week in office that makes virtually everyone who is in the country without authorization a priority for deportation, including those who have been only accused, not convicted, of crimes.

(Keegan Hamilton. “Trump told Dreamers to 'rest easy,' but here’s proof they shouldn’t.” Vice News. May 3 2017.)

Without DACA

Dreamers live under a dark cloud of fear because for years their voices have been silenced. Without DACA in place, every individual who was under the protection of the program will lose their jobs and potentially their right to live in the U.S.

Allowing DACA to end would leave hundreds of thousands of young people unable to work lawfully in this country and expose them to the threat of detention and deportation. Not only would this be heartless, but it would also jeopardize the many contributions that DACA recipients make to U.S. society and the national, state, and local economies every day.

Hey, Trump, I know you weren't loved enough
By your sandpaper father, who roughed and roughed

And roughed the world. I have some empathy
For the boy you were. But, damn, your incivility,

Your volcanic hostility, your lists
Of enemies, your moral apocalypse –

All of it makes you dumb and dangerous.
You are the Antichrist we need to antitrust.

Or maybe you're only a minor league
Dictator—temporary, small, and weak.

You've wounded our country. It might heal.
And yet, I think of what you've revealed

About the millions and millions of people
Who worship beneath your tarnished steeple.

Those folks admire your lack of compassion.
They think it's honest and wonderfully old-fashioned.

They call you traditional and Christian.
LOL! You've given them permission

To be callous. They have been rewarded
For being heavily armed and heavily guarded.

You've convinced them that their deadly sins
(Envy, wrath, greed) have transformed into wins.

From “Hymn” by Sherman Alexie