In the article “A Dream Deferred,” published by The Economist in their September 9 issue, the publication describes how President Donald Trump ends an Obama-era program, and leaves undocumented immigrants brought illegally by their parents to the United States in the hands of the Congress. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is a program created by Barack Obama in June 2012, and the program grants a two-year work and residency permits to undocumented immigrants younger than 31, who have no criminal record, who came to the U.S. before the age 16 among other requirements. Approximately 800,000 young undocumented immigrants benefit from this program.
Ending DACA was one of Trump’s promises during his presidential campaign, and on September 5th he sent attorney-general Jeff Sessions to announce the end of it. Sessions, who is a fierce immigration skeptic said that “DACA denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens,” however, there is no evidence to sustain such allegation. On the contrary, a survey conducted by the University of California, San Diego, found that DACA recipients contribute to the economy by starting businesses, buying homes, and other productive economic activities. Also, the Migration Policy Institute found that undocumented immigrant’s recipients of this program are more likely to sustain white-collar jobs, in comparison to the manual labor performed by other undocumented workers.
From now on, the affair moves to the Congress, and numerous activist groups and business figures expressed their support to DACA recipients and asked President Trump to consider not to end this program. It is unclear what Congress can do to fix it, meanwhile other old and new initiatives have emerged on the Congress floor such as the DREAM Act, BRIDGE Act, and RAC (Recognizing America’s Children) Act, the last one, unlike DACA, offers a path to citizenship. Nevertheless, the likeliness of an agreement between Democrats and Republicans to pass any of these Acts is unknown.
Business Writing 