DACA Recipients Do Not Harm U.S.-Born Workers

New research concludes young people brought to America as children and protected from deportation do not harm the job prospects of U.S.-born workers. The study addresses an argument made by critics who oppose a permanent solution to the status of individuals granted Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

Emily Battaglia, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Delaware, examined the impact of DACA in a study published in the Journal of Urban Economics. “In this paper, I quantify the labor market impacts of DACA, a policy that granted a large number of undocumented individuals temporary work permits, on natives [U.S.-born] and immigrants ineligible to take up the policy,” writes Battaglia. “The results show that on average, DACA did not depress the fraction of natives working. In fact, there is suggestive evidence that the policy had a positive effect on the fraction of natives [U.S.-born] working. This positive result is driven by drawing individuals out of unemployment and increasing the share in the labor force. In addition, there was a non-negative impact on incomes.”

Other research has found granting work authorization to foreign nationals produces positive outcomes for U.S. workers. Madeline Zavodny, an economics professor at the University of North Florida, examined nearly a decade of data on Optional Practical Training and concluded, “The results indicate that the OPT program does not reduce job opportunities for American workers in STEM fields.” The National Foundation for American Policy study found, “A larger number of foreign students approved for OPT, relative to the number of U.S. workers, is associated with a lower unemployment rate among those U.S. workers.”

DACA established criteria that allowed the federal government to guard qualified young people from deportation and grant them work authorization. In 2017, President Trump ended DACA. However, in June 2020, the Supreme Court concluded that although the Trump administration had the right to end DACA, it did not follow proper procedures. The court ruled DACA recipients had reliance interests.

“In July 2021, a Texas court ruled that the DACA program was unlawful, but issued a partial stay (i.e., pause) of its ruling to allow existing DACA beneficiaries to continue to renew their DACA and work authorization,” according to Berry Appleman and Leiden. “The court vacated DACA, however, as to new applicants. The Biden administration appealed the ruling. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit heard oral arguments on July 6, 2022.”

The Obama administration started DACA in 2012 by issuing a memorandum. In August 2022, the Department of Homeland Security published a final regulation to strengthen DACA’s chances in court.

“On October 6, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled against Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), upholding an earlier decision from U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen that the policy is unlawful,” according to the National Immigration Forum. “In line with the lower court decision, the three-judge panel unanimously found that the 2012 Department of Homeland Security Memorandum that established DACA violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) on both procedural and substantive grounds. . . . Consistent with Judge Hanen’s previous decision, the Fifth Circuit continued to stay the injunction that would end DACA for current DACA recipients.”

If DACA ended for current DACA recipients, Andrew Pincus, an attorney with Mayer Brown, said, “More than 600,000 people could lose the ability to work, to drive a car, to participate in society, and also that they will face the possibility of being deported to countries they have never known because they came here as children. Their families also will suffer, including the more than 500,000 U.S. citizen children of DACA beneficiaries whose mother or father no longer will be able to work to put food on the table and a roof over their heads and who may be forced to leave their children and move to a different country.”

Pincus cites a report from FWD.us that if DACA ends, 1,000 people, on average, will be removed from the U.S. workforce every business day for two years.

In an interview, Prof. Battaglia said, “Across a variety of different checks and analyses of the data, there is no evidence that DACA had a negative impact on the U.S.-born in the labor market. In fact, there is some evidence of positive effects, suggesting that, if anything, DACA actually had a beneficial impact on U.S.-born workers.”