Hey Steemit community, I just recently joined and wanted to give this website a go. Last month I wrote this paper for class and I figured that I would repurpose it for my maiden voyage on STEEM.
My sources for the paper are below it
-------- Many Americans would surely agree that the 24/7 news cycle of 2017 is overwhelming and at many times unsettling. The constant stream of news contains information of events that impact all of us in varying degrees. The disenfranchised and oppressed communities in the US are the most vulnerable and have the most to lose. The Trump administration scapegoats vulnerable populations and targets them to the approval of his base. Many vague nationalistic economic arguments are used in an attempt to justify his executive actions. A prime example of this is his removal of the Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status and putting the livelihood of the Dreamers in the hands of a semi-functional congress. I believe that elimination of the DACA status would be economically foolish. I hope that this paper will serve as a debunking of the claims of economic nationalism that the administration hides behind.
Daca has been in the news a lot recently. Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals was an executive order signed into law by the Obama administration. The purpose of the executive order was to give residency status to children of undocumented immigrants that meet certain requirements (Brannon, 2017). The requirements of Individuals granted DACA status include not being convicted of a crime, they needed to have lived in the US for at least five years since time of arrival, and they needed to be children when they were brought to the United States. The primary stakeholders in the DACA debate are the dreamers, the Obama administration, the Trump administration, Congress and the American economy .
The central argument from the previous administration was that deporting these individuals would be a waste of resources. For all intents and purposes, the only difference between DACA recipients and the rest of America was that they were brought across the border into the US without any autonomy in the matter. Around 800,000 immigrants with DACA status are currently in limbo right now (Romo, Stewart and Naylor, 2017) as Trump announced that his administration would nullify DACA status. The politicizing of Dreamers has a broad impact on the United States. This action taken against the Dreamers affects everyone to varying degrees via the economy. The middle class that are not DACA recipients have a stake in this issue as well. DACA recipients pay taxes and it is estimated that the collective drop in GDP between the states would be as high as $460.3 billion within the next ten years(Svajlenka and Jawtz, 2017). In addition, an estimated drop to medicare and social security would be $24.6 billion, which would affect taxpayers that collect entitlement programs (Abramson, 2017). The dreamers will feel the most change as they will be uprooted from the home that they have grown up in.
I think removing DACA protections is a cruel act and an economically foolish thing to do. Recipients of DACA are productive members of the work force, they are educated, they aren’t criminals, and they are tax-payers. DACA recipients are socio-economically intertwined with the rest of us in the United States. The removal of DACA would have a chilling effect on economic activity in the US. It is estimated that between 50,000 to 75,000 dreamers are employed as a direct result of their DACA status(Pope, 2016).
If DACA status is removed the burden on business owners would be massive. Hiring individuals to replace dreamers requires job training and consumes money and resources. DACA recipients tend to be highly educated and thus a valuable resource for businesses. AmericanProgress.org recently conducted a survey in regards to employment by DACA recipients. The results shown by the survey are very impressive, “The data show that 91 percent of respondents are currently employed. Among respondents age 25 and older, employment jumps to 93 percent (Wong, Rosas, Luna, Manning, Reyna, O’Shea, Jawetz and Wolgin, 2017).” Education is a key factor in forming productive and valuable members of a workforce. In regards to DACA re¬¬cipients, 45% are enrolled in school and 72% are seeking at minimum a bachelor's degree. Outside of the 45% currently taking classes, 36% over 25 years of age have obtained at least a B.A degree (Svajlenka et al...2017).
My own personal opinion has already been stated in regards to DACA. In this section, I will present the viewpoints of several key individuals that support the removal of DACA. However, it should be noted that a person such as the Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is widely considered outside of the mainstream. The Trump administration appointed him Attorney General, but before the election, it would have been inconceivable of him being the Attorney General. Many of his arguments, like that of his superior, have varying degrees of credibility. However, to address my own bias on the issue, I will present the viewpoints stated at face value without ranking the quality of each argument.
No person better represents the face of opposition to DACA status than the highly controversial current Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions has been known to make many claims in regards to removing DACA status from Dreamers. Sesssion's view of how DACA affected the work force can be summed up by his quote, "It also denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens(Sessions, 2017)." Session argues that hundreds of thousands of Americans are unemployed because the dreamers are working the jobs and denying them access.
Another loud voice in the argument of the DACA status is Republican Senator Tom Cotton. A vocal opponent of DACA, he believes that DACA encourages further migration, because of a lack of repercussions for DACA recipients(Tillett, 2017). Cotton prefers a more incremental approach and wishes to prevent immigrants from collecting welfare. In a CBS news article, Tom Cotton is quoted saying, "Stop unlimited family chain migration addressing the first problem, and then enhanced enforcement measures would address the second problem(Tillett, 2017).” Cotton is pushing for the RAISE ACT, by arguing that Dreamers put a strain on the economy because they may utilize entitlement benefits and an accepted presence in the US incentivizes further migration.
Ike Brannon of the CATO institute, a supporter of DACA spoke on the effects of the repeal on the federal government during an interview on CNBC. In the interview Brannon states, “$60 billion over the next 10 years and the overall economic impact would be a little over $200 billion (Gurdus, 2017).” Brannon thinks that it would be unrealistic for mass deportation and that most Dreamers would likely work as undocumented. This scenario means a significant reduction in the taxes that Dreamers currently pay into. This would probably mean that the tax burden would have to be shifted elsewhere.
The former chief economist to Vice President Biden, Jared Bernstein strongly disagrees with the Attorney General. Bernstein writes in the Washington Post, "evidence-free claims that DACA recipients take jobs from native-born workers(Bernstein, 2017)." Bernstein states that Session's job argument is a logical fallacy as labor demand is created by people existing in the socio-economic environment. Good economic activity comes from a healthy relationship between middle-class consumption and supply. That supply needs to be able to feed the demand that is produced.
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) takes a hard stand in opposition to the Trump administration in regards to the removal of DACA. Social Work Blog states, “More than 91 percent of young adult Dreamers are employed (Social Work Blog, 2017).” NASW’s statement condemns the rescinding of DACA from both a humanitarian standpoint as well as an economic one. This issue ties directly into the core of the NASW code of ethics; Service, Social justice, dignity and worth of the person, importance of relationships, integrity and competence (“Code of Ethics,” n.d.). The livelihood of hundreds of thousands of dreamers are jeopardized, thus keeping DACA status in place is social justice. Keeping the Dreamers in the states also protects the socio-economic environment of the work force. Upholding the DACA status can also be viewed as social justice for the non-Dreamers in the middle class as well. A damaged economy benefits very few people. Dreamers are very productive and educated members of society that contribute to the socio-economic environment of the United States. Ensuring that dreamers can remain protected in the states is respecting their dignity and their worth. Dreamers have spent virtually their entire lives in the States. In that time they have been here, they have built relationships, joined the workforce, created businesses and started families. Fighting the repeal of DACA values the importance of the human relationships that those within the category of dreamers have forged.
Attorney General Sessions portrays a dystopic present that has a fixed and finite amount of jobs, which the dreamers stole. Tom Cotton sees the dreamers as strains on our entitlement programs. On the other side, Jared Bernstein argues that Dreamers pay taxes and through their taxes, they pay into entitlement programs. These entitlement programs allow more dollars in the pockets of Americans enabling them to spend money and help their local economies. Ike Brannon of the CATO Institute points out the economic ramifications that would occur to the federal government if the money stopped flowing from the Dreamers. The dreamers are engrained in our society and are part of our socio-economic environment. Removing the status would be disrupting to the economic health of the country.
This is a dangerous time in our country, and disenfranchised groups are exceptionally vulnerable. Dreamer's DACA status is in jeopardy, and it is anyone's guess how it will turn out. The administration is leaving it to a Republican majority in Congress to pass legislation to protect the Dreamers. Congress has its own host of issues and infighting. There is a window of time that Congress has to act upon, and if the factions of the GOP are not able to pass any meaningful bills, the situation for the Dreamers and our economy becomes even more dire. The Dreamers are educated and productive members of our society and contribute to our economy. To not protect them would be a giant disservice to the Dreamers and our wallets.
Abramson, A. (2017, September 06). Here's How Much Money Rescinding DACA Could Cost the U.S. Economy. Retrieved September 24, 2017, from http://fortune.com/2017/09/05/daca-donald-trump-economic-impact/
Bernstein, J. (2017, September 07). Perspective | The economics favor the DACA dreamers. But theres a lot more to them than that. Retrieved September 24, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/09/07/the-economics-favor-the-daca-dreamers-but-theres-a-lot-more-to-them-than-that/?utm_term=.366ef1a0eb93
Brannon, I., " Albright, L. (2017, January 18). The Economic and Fiscal Impact of Repealing DACA. Retrieved September 24, 2017, from https://www.cato.org/blog/economic-fiscal-impact-repealing-daca
Code of Ethics. (n.d.). Retrieved September 23, 2017, from https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English.aspx
Gurdus, E. (2017, September 05). Ending DACA could cost the economy up to $200 billion, CATO expert says. Retrieved September 22, 2017, from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/05/ending-daca-could-cost-economy-up-to-200-billion-cato-expert-says.html
Kurtzleben, D. (2017, September 06). FACT CHECK: Are DACA Recipients Stealing Jobs Away From Other Americans? Retrieved September 24, 2017, from http://www.npr.org/2017/09/06/548882071/fact-check-are-daca-recipients-stealing-jobs-away-from-other-americans
Pope, N. G. (2016). The Effects of DACAmentation: The Impact of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals on Unauthorized Immigrants. Journal of Public Economics, 143 , 98-114. doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2016.08.014
Romo, V., Stewart, M., " Naylor, B. (2017, September 05). Trump Ends DACA, Calls On Congress To Act. Retrieved September 24, 2017, from http://www.npr.org/2017/09/05/546423550/trump-signals-end-to-daca-calls-on-congress-to-act
Sessions, J. B. (2017, September 5). Justice.gov(United States, Department Of Justice, Attorney General). Retrieved September 20, 2017, from https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-sessions-delivers-remarks-daca
Social Work Blog. (2017, September). Retrieved September 20, 2017, from http://www.socialworkblog.org/advocacy/2017/09/statement-president-trump-decision-to-rescind-daca-is-cruel-unwise-and-unjustified/
Svajlenka, N. P., " Jawetz, T. (2017, July 21). A New Threat to DACA Could Cost States Billions of Dollars. Retrieved September 24, 2017, from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2017/07/21/436419/new-threat-daca-cost-states-billions-dollars/
Tillett, E. (2017, September 06). Sen. Cotton: Legal status for young immigrants would have negative consequences. Retrieved September 24, 2017, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senator-tom-cotton-legal-status-for-young-immigrants-negative-consequences/
Tom K. Wong, Greisa Martinez Rosas, Adam Luna, Henry Manning, Adrian Reyna, Patrick O'Shea, Tom Jawetz, and Philip E. Wolgin. (2017, August 28). DACA Recipients' Economic and Educational Gains Continue to Grow. Retrieved September 24, 2017, from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2017/08/28/437956/daca-recipients-economic-educational-gains-continue-grow/