Texas and California would be the states most affected by an eventual reduction in their workforce.
By EFE | La Opinion | AUG. 22, 2022 | Photo by Mandel Nagan
Ten years ago, under the government of then-President Barack Obama, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was launched. However, today it is classified as illegal by the courts in the country and is subject to review, but in the extreme case it could be canceled.
If so, thousands of workers in the country, in addition to becoming unemployed, would be at risk of being deported.
According to a report by FWD.us., every two months and for two years, the United States would lose 22,000 workers in the event of the end of DACA.
The analysis warns that the states most affected by the reduction in their workforce would be Texas and California, since there reside more than half a million migrants who benefit from the program that offers a work permit and protection against deportation.
Therefore, DACA beneficiaries and their families are waiting for an appeals court in Louisiana to issue a ruling on the legality of the program.
In early July, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals of New Orleans heard the arguments about the program.
Texas asks to eliminate the program
It should be noted that last year, Andrew Hanen, a federal judge of Texas, sided with the plaintiff states in the opinion that DACA violated the administrative process when it was created and ordered a ban on the granting of new permits under this framework.
In this regard, Texas and the other states with Republican governments that initiated the lawsuit have argued that the program has undermined its budgets by allowing undocumented immigrants to stay in the country.
On the other hand, demographer Phillip Connor, author of the report, emphasizes that if the immigration benefit were withdrawn, the United States would see an "immediate impact on its economy and the labor market."
According to data from the Immigration and Citizenship Service (USCIS), there are currently 611,470 people enrolled in the DACA program.
And although the number is not a large percentage at the national level, Connor insists that the loss of these workers "can be felt very much at the local level," especially in areas where there is more concentration of DACA beneficiaries.
According to the study, if the program is cut, California would be the state where the most jobs would be lost (6,000 per month), followed by Texas (5,000) and Illinois (1,000 jobs per month).
The analysis also shows that the impact will not only be suffered by the "dreamers," as DACA beneficiaries are known, but also by their families since thousands of people throughout the country will have a close relative at risk of being deported, the study says.
