Do Not Rescind DACA

Do Not Rescind DACA

On the September 5th, 2017, President Donald Trump officially ordered the rescinding on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that has shielded around 800.000 young undocumented immigrants from deportation. In his announcement, President Trump claimed the program has brought to the U.S. many pessimistic consequences. He stated that legalizing these young people would increase the threat to the community safety and criminal security, average labor wages have been lowered and become very challenging, and the program has given many job opportunities to illegal immigrants, resulting in higher unemployment for American workers. It also would take away taxpayers billions of dollars to support the recipients. However, I believe his argument is unjustified and prejudiced.

First, he said that the program would increase the rate of crime and threaten the community safety. Yet, according to David Bier, there is around 2000 recipients have been revoked their permits due to public safety and gang related concerns. However, it is a quarter of one percent of recipients, about 35 times as many Americans have been in prison at some point before age 34. Also, all recipients would have a background check to qualify for acceptance. DACA respondents are likely to keep their status immaculate in order to be able for the renewals. There is no possible way to prevent completely crime in any community.

Second, he claimed that DACA would lower average wages and cause unemployment to Americans. In fact, these young people did not take away jobs from Americans. DACA would have no impact on the lump of labor fallacy, which means illegal employees take over jobs of Americans. Bier opposed, “From 1970 to 2017, the U.S. labor force doubled. Rather than ending up with a 50 percent unemployment rate, U.S. employment doubled. If adding workers made the economy poorer ... That’s one reason earlier efforts to restrict immigration did not produce any wage gains.”

Third, repealing DACA will not benefit taxpayers, as Trump has argued. Undocumented immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits, even for education. They are not eligible for any federal welfares such as food stamps, medicaid, ObamaCare, financial aid, etc… Moreover, DACA recipients are mostly educated with high level education, their tax income would be positive to the government. Bier proved that the rescission would be the equivalent to 31 major regulations. It leads U.S. employers to terminate 6,914 employees who currently participate in DACA at a weekly cost of $61 million for the next two years, result at $6.3 billion in total employee turnover cost. There is no reasonable cause to rescind the program.

In short, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals benefits both the recipients and the nation. It was a bad move that Trump administration rescinded the program. Instead, he should maintain and keep it growing. They have good impact on employment industrial and increase the GDP. DACA respondents have been affecting positively to the national economy and spreading their success stories to others.

www.cato.org/blog/ending-daca-will-impose-billions-employer-compliance-costs.