Congress must act to legalize DACA participants

The clock is ticking for Congress and the Trump administration to determine the fate of the 690,000 young people in America covered by the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

When Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced earlier this month that the program was being rescinded, he was probably right on its constitutional weakness, but he was definitely wrong about its economic consequences. The “DACA kids” are a sure bet for America and should be fully legalized as soon as possible.

Under the terms of the 2012 executive order, all DACA participants came to the United States as minors. They did not break the law themselves; they were following the direction of their parents. They have graduated from high school and are now attending college, working, or serving in the military. They’ve all passed a background check by the Department of Homeland Security.

DACA participants are fully Americanized in every way but their legal status. Because they arrived here as minors, they invariably speak fluent English. For many of them, the United States is the only country they have known growing up. They are at home in America and American culture. They are already assimilated.

As I noted in this brief exchange last week at a Joint Economic Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, America needs these young workers to keep our nation demographically healthy. Without immigrants, the working age population of the United States will soon begin to shrink — as we are already seeing in other advanced economies such as Japan. More than 90 percent of the DACA participants already in the labor force, and they are filling important jobs across the economy.

With millions of Baby Boomers in the process of retiring, we need the DACA participants to maintain an adequate workforce to pay the taxes to support the growing ranks of retired Americans drawing on federal pension programs. In fact, given the average education level of DACA participants, they are a net plus in terms of fiscal impact, as David Bier at the Cato Institute on others have documented.

With the program due to be phased out by early March of 2018, Congress should act with urgency to pass a bipartisan bill that would grant permanent legal status to all DACA-eligible immigrants now in the United States. Despite his campaign rhetoric, President Trump has made very promising statements about his support for a permanent legislative fix.

The attorney general’s announcement this month was a disappointment for those who do not want to see the DACA participants deported, but it does create an opportunity for Democrats and Republicans to work together in Congress and with the administration to secure a brighter future for hundreds of thousands of young people growing up in America, and by doing so, to brighten the future of the United States.