Here’s what DACA is: vital protection from deportation, allowing immigrant youth to work legally so they can support their families in the only country they’ve ever called home. Here’s what DACA isn’t: “amnesty,” free college, and government freebies. In fact, immigrant youth pay to get into the program. Imagine trying to raise a $495 application fee when you don’t have permission to work legally in the first place.
In working to discredit the program and undocumented immigrant youth, Donald Trump and Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III have pushed numerous racist lies and misconceptions, including claims that DACA hurts U.S.-born taxpayers. But undocumented immigrants pay $12 billion annually in state and local taxes, while “DACA recipients have paid about $2 billion in state and local taxes,” writes CNN’s Nicole Chavez in her piece dunking several DACA myths:
Belen Sisa, a political science student at Arizona State University, drew widespread attention in March after she posted a photo of her holding up her tax returns.
"MYTH BUSTER: I, an undocumented immigrant, just filed my taxes and PAID $300 to the state of Arizona," Sisa wrote.
She also had a message for President Donald Trump, "Wanna tell me again how I should be deported, contribute nothing and only leech off this country while the 1% wealthiest people in this country steal from you everyday?"
Good question. “DACA recipients end up contributing more than the average,” writes David Bier in a similar piece, “because they are not eligible for any federal means-tested welfare: cash assistance, food stamps, Medicaid, health-care tax credits or anything else.”
Chavez on another myth that immigrant youth are “stealing” jobs from U.S.-born Americans:
There's actually a shortage of qualified workers in the United States, the Federal Reserve said in a survey of businesses across the country released in July.
Tech companies in New York can't find software developers. Construction firms in Virginia can't find skilled builders and trucking companies in Kansas are short on drivers, just to name a few industries with hiring issues.
Critics who argue that DACA takes American jobs point to the 4.4% unemployment rate, noting that unemployed Americans could be employed instead of DACA recipients. They also contend that if employers offered higher wages, Americans would fill those jobs.
Many economists reject those arguments, pointing out that 6 million jobs remain unfilled in the United States, a record high, despite DACA recipients being employed.
Experts say ending protections for DACA recipients would worsen the shortage of workers in the country. More than 75% of the 800,000 people with DACA permits are employed, the National Immigration Law Center said.
“We depend on other workers, DACA recipients included, to buy the products and services we produce,” Bier writes. “That’s one reason earlier efforts to restrict immigration did not produce any wage gains.” Further research from the Center for American Progress also finds that DACA recipients are themselves job creators, far outpacing the rate of the general population:
We ... see that 5 percent of respondents started their own business after receiving DACA. Among respondents 25 years and older, this climbs to 8 percent. As the 2016 survey noted, among the American public as a whole, the rate of starting a business is 3.1 percent, meaning that DACA recipients are outpacing the general population in terms of business creation.
Another myth Chavez tackles is the belief that DACA puts undocumented youth on a path to citizenship. But “the program is not amnesty, nor is it a path to become a US citizen or a legal permanent resident,” Chavez writes. “Dreamers are able to reside legally in the United States for two years and then apply for renewal”:
DACA gives beneficiaries a temporary reprieve from deportation, allowing them to stay lawfully in the country, granting them work permits and allowing them to obtain driver's licenses. And it stops there.
"This is not amnesty. This is not immunity. This is not a path to citizenship. It's not a permanent fix," Obama said when he announced the program five years ago. "This is a temporary stopgap measure."
In the face of Trump’s cowardly ending of this program, it makes passing permanent legislative protections for undocumented immigrant youth—namely, the bipartisan DREAM Acts sitting in both the House and Senate—all the more urgent. It’s also important to remember that, yes, undocumented youth make immense financial and cultural contributions to the United States. But they are also more than their tax contributions. They are Americans, and this is their home and where they belong. We must help them stay.