
The following excerpts are from the upcoming book ” The American Citizens Handbook on Immigration” a candid conversation with a concerned citizen”available in September.
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), is an American Immigration policy launched in 2012 by the Obama administration calling for deferred action for certain undocumented young people who came to the U.S. as children. DACA allows young people who were brought illegally to the United States as children, and who meet several key criteria to be considered for temporary relief from deportation or from being placed in removal proceedings. However, DACA does not provide lawful status. Once granted, DACA is valid for two (2) years and may be renewed. Individuals granted deferred action will also be eligible to request employment authorization (EAD). DACA applicants go through extensive background checks, and it is granted on a case-by-case basis. USCIS began accepting applications for the program on 15 August 2012.
To be eligible for DACA, applicants must meet several eligibility requirements such as: have entered the United States before their 16th birthday, be currently in school, a high school graduate or be honorably discharged from the military, be under 31 years of age, and not have been convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor, or otherwise pose a threat to national security.
President Barack Obama announced the policy in a speech in the Rose Garden of the White House on 15 June 2012. He said that his administration would stop deporting young undocumented individuals who met certain requirements previously proposed under the DREAM ACT. The policy was created after acknowledgment that these immigrants had been largely raised in the United States, and that they are Americans in every single way – except on paper. DACA is also seen as a way to remove immigration resources and enforcement attention from “low priority” individuals who act as good citizens.
DACA was created through executive power, and it was one of Obama’s most controversial policies, and quickly declared as anti-constitutional by the Republican party.
As of June 2016, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) had received 844,931 – out of 1.7 million estimated eligible candidates – initial applications for DACA, of which 741,546 (88%) were approved, 60,269 (7%) were denied, and 43,121 (5%) were pending. Over half of those accepted reside in California and Texas
What you see:
Below are some excerpts from an October 2016 survey of DACA recipients—conducted by political scientist Tom K. Wong, United We Dream, the National Immigration Law Center, and CAP. (For more data on this survey, you will need to google or purchase the book in September.)
Using data from two Center for American Progress publications—a report that estimates the gross domestic product (GDP) declines that would accompany removing all unauthorized workers from the country and a survey that estimates the share of DACA recipients who are employed—CAP estimates that ending DACA would result in a loss of $460.3 billion from the national GDP over the next decade. Ending DACA would remove an estimated 685,000 workers from the nation’s economy.
DACA’s impact on employment
Work authorization has been critical in helping DACA recipients participate more fully in the labor force. The data show that 89 percent of respondents are currently employed. Among respondents ages 25 and older, the employment rate jumps to 91 percent.
DACA’s impact on the economy
DACA recipients’ purchasing power continues to increase. For example, 60 percent of respondents reported buying their first car after receiving DACA. These large purchases contribute to state revenue, as most states collect a percentage of the purchase price in sales tax, along with additional registration and title fees. The added revenue for states comes in addition to the safety benefits of having more licensed and insured drivers on the roads.
DACA’s impact on earnings
Several years of data, including this 2019 survey, make clear that DACA is having a positive and significant effect on wages. Respondents’ average hourly wage increased by 86 percent since they received DACA, rising from $10.46 per hour to $19.45 per hour. And among respondents 25 years and older, the average hourly wage increased by 128 percent since receiving DACA. These higher wages are not just important for recipients and their families but also for tax revenues and economic growth at the local, state, and federal levels.
The data also show that respondents’ average annual earnings come out to approximately $42,000, and their median annual earnings total $38,000. Among respondents 25 years and older, these figures are $49,790 and $44,583, respectively.
The Complete Picture:
I have attached an article from The Heritage Foundation-December 4th ,2017 entitled
“DACA Is Not What The Liberals Say. Here Are The Facts”
Democrats portray the DACA program as only benefiting those who were a few years old when they came to the U.S. illegally, leaving them unable to speak their native language and ignorant of their countries’ cultural norms. Therefore, the reasoning goes, it would be a hardship to return them to the countries where they were born.
Obama himself gave this rationale when he said DACA beneficiaries were “brought to this country by their parents” as infants and face “deportation to a country that [they] know nothing about, with a language” they don’t even speak.
While this may be true of a small portion of the DACA population, it certainly is not true of all of the aliens who received administrative amnesty. In fact, illegal aliens were eligible as long as they came to the U.S. before their 16th birthday and were under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012.
DACA also required that beneficiaries enroll in school, graduate from high school, obtain a GED certificate, or receive an honorable discharge from the military; have no conviction for a felony, significant misdemeanor, or three or more other misdemeanors; and not pose a threat to national security or public safety.
However, the Obama administration appeared to routinely waive the education (or its equivalent) requirement as long as the illegal alien was enrolled in some kind of program. Only 49 percent of DACA beneficiaries have a high school education—despite the fact that a majority of them are adults.
DACA had no requirement of English fluency either. In fact, the original application requested applicants to answer whether the form had been “read” to the alien by a translator “in a language in which [the applicant is] fluent.”
The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that “perhaps 24 percent of the DACA-eligible population fall into the functionally illiterate category and another 46 percent have only ‘basic’ English ability.”
This is a far cry from the image of DACA beneficiaries as all children who don’t speak the language of—and know nothing about the culture of—their native countries.
In fact, it seems rather that a significant percentage of DACA beneficiaries may have serious limitations in their education, experience, and English fluency that negatively affected their ability to function in American society.
Providing amnesty to low-skilled, low-educated aliens with marginal English language ability would impose large fiscal costs on American taxpayers resulting from increased government payouts and benefits, and would be unfair to legal immigrants who obeyed the law to come here.
When Hispanic immigrants, who make up some 80 to 90 percent of DACA recipients, recently took an objective test of English literacy, 44 percent of those who said they speak English “well” or “very well” actually scored “below basic” — a level sometimes described as functional illiteracy. Based on test-takers with the required age and residency, I estimate that perhaps 24 percent of the DACA-eligible population fall into the functionally illiterate category and another 46 percent have only “basic” English ability. From:Time to End DACA-By Steven A. Camarota –National Review, August 3, 2017
DACA had no requirement of English fluency either. In fact, the original application requested applicants to answer whether the form had been “read” to the alien by a translator “in a language in which [the applicant is] fluent.”
The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that “perhaps 24 percent of the DACA-eligible population fall into the functionally illiterate category and another 46 percent have only ‘basic’ English ability.”
This is a far cry from the image of DACA beneficiaries as all children who don’t speak the language of—and know nothing about the culture of—their native countries.
In fact, it seems rather that a significant percentage of DACA beneficiaries may have serious limitations in their education, experience, and English fluency that negatively affected their ability to function in American society.
Amnesty advocates love to use the use of the words “valedictorian” and “DACA” in the same sentence. But, in reality, less than half of the DACA population has actually graduated from high school. This is despite the fact that the average age of a DACA recipient is 25 with the oldest in their late 30s.
In terms of military service, roughly 900 DACA recipients – or a little more than one-tenth of one percent – have actually served in the U.S. military. This clearly calls into question just how different are they than the rest of the illegal alien population, and why would they, above any others, deserve legalization?
DACA recipients have seized on American millennials’ ability to receive financial aid and college scholarships in multiple states. Approximately one out of every four DACA recipients — about 200,000 individuals — live in California. California allows Dreamers to receive in-state college tuition and 19 other states have followed suit. The California Dream Act, embolden by DACA, has set a precedent for states to generously allocate funding to students who have entered or were brought into the country Illegally.
California is merely one example of states diverting funding from the middle class to fund Dreamers. To fund the Cal Grant entitlement for the state’s “neediest” students, California has “phased-out” the Middle-Class Scholarship Program. Implementing the California Dream Act made certain that undocumented and nonresident students are eligible for state financial aid, and that alone accounts for $67 million of the increase in Cal Grant spending.
Almost 8-percent of total DACA requestors (59,786 individuals) had arrest records as of the date the systems were queried, which included offenses such as assault and battery, rape, murder, and drunk driving, among others. “Requestors” includes individuals approved and denied DACA.
Of the 53,792 DACA recipients with a “prior” arrest, more than 4,500 had been arrested on allegations of assault or battery; 830 arrests were related to sex crimes — including rape, sexual abuse or indecent exposure; and 95 arrests were made on warrants for kidnapping, human trafficking or false imprisonment. Ten such arrests — or 0.02 percent of all arrests — were made in murder cases.
As mentioned in the beginning, there are more details for both sides in Chapter 9 of “The American Citizens Handbook-a candid conversation with a concerned citizen. The American citizen is the latest discriminated segment in this country. They give the most and are walked over, time after time. Go to americancitizenshandbook.com . Go to your state and find your Senators and Congressperson who support stronger immigration laws.
Thank you for joining in the conversation. God Bless and God Bless America