November 15, 2019

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments last week on the administration’s move to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

The Chamber has long supported immigration policies that allow our businesses to legally access the workforce they need in order to grow. We have submitted letters in support of DACA as well as legislation to replace the program with a permanent solution for this population. With over 45,000 DACA recipients in San Diego, a population highly integrated into our workforce, terminating the program would result in a serious disruption to our economy. Removing Dreamers, as this population has come to be known, from the workforce would result in more than $460 billion in lost GDP nationwide over the next decade. In contrast, estimates show that passing legislation that creates an earned pathway to citizenship for Dreamers could add as much as $1trillion to the national GDP over that same period.

Nearly 800,000 individuals in the country have benefited from DACA and roughly 90% of all Dreamers have been able to join the workforce.

In 2017, the Trump Administration moved to rescind DACA, a decision followed by a series of legal challenges in federal courts considering the consequences of ending the program. As a result, the DACA program temporarily stayed in place, allowing recipients to continue to renew their status but indefinitely suspending new applications.