Children of Illegal Immigrants

 

It is reasonable for citizens of any nation to be concerned about the people entering their territory. Often the boundaries with neighbors were established at a peace treaty following the death of people on both sides. When boundaries change, people with differing loyalties may be trapped and isolated from their relatives unless there is a friendly approach for people to visit back and forth.

The citizens of nations with large borders like the US incur considerable costs in monitoring their borders. Presumably, successful nations like the US and those in Western Europe are attractive because of the opportunities for work, education, and a range of benefits.

Identifying those who enter the country illegally is no small task. When they mate with citizens and have children, they have created a potentially distressful condition if they are discovered and deported.

My concern in this post is the children who were brought to the US illegally. As an immigrant myself, I do not recall being asked if I wanted to come to the US. I am fortunate because my parents were legal immigrants. I will leave the legal question to lawmakers and judges. I am thinking of the moral issue of causing children to suffer when they did not choose to disobey the law.

A program that attempted to deal with the moral aspect of these children was created in 2012 and is known as DACA (The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). The program offers an opportunity for qualified applicants to work in the US and be protected from deportation. The people in the program are referred to as “Dreamers.” The program has been unpopular with some Americans. Recently a man I know (Mr. X) posted a letter he sent to his congressman advocating against citizenship for the children. He also expressed concerns about the cost to the US of illegals; however, he did not include facts to support his arguments. Mr. X did mention related concerns such as illegals and their children giving birth to children in the US, which grants the children automatic citizenship.

Moral Facts

When making a moral decision, certain facts may be relevant. For example, it might change our view of a program if we knew the contributions of Dreamers to the wellbeing of American citizens. We may also be concerned about what happens to Dreamers if they are deported. I’ll refer to these people as Dreamers.

DACA is not a free program. Applicants pay a fee and submit personal information.

DACA does not grant permanent status. Applicants must renew their status and pay a fee.

(See Svajlenka for the following)

Age 7- the average age of the Dreamers; 37% were under age 5

Age 16- they had to arrive in the US before age 16 and lived here since 2007 to be eligible

661,000 were active DACA people in 2017

About 1/3 were in school

Leading occupations for those working were: Food preparation (66k), office/administrative support (66k); sales (61k); management and business (28k) education and training (16k), healthcare and support (27k)

Dreamers pay taxes: Federal = $5.7 billion; State $3.1 billion. They support Social Security and Medicare through their payroll taxes. After paying taxes, they have $24.1 billion in spending power.

Dreamers support the real estate economy owning 59,000 homes with $613.8 million in mortgages and rent payments of $2.3 billion.

Fwd US offers the following data with links to support.

 

Nearly $2 billion contributed by Dreamers to Social Security annually

Nearly $470 million paid into Medicare by Dreamers every year

Up to $1 trillion added to the U.S. GDP over a decade if permanent protections for Dreamers are passed

96% of Dreamers are either working or in school

6% of Dreamers have launched their own business

60% of Dreamers have purchased a vehicle.

14% of Dreamers have purchased their own home, and they pay an estimated $380 million in property taxes every year.

Since DACA’s rescission in 2017, every year nearly 100,000 Dreamers graduate from high school without DACA or protection from deportation, harming their work prospects and limiting their access to higher education.

The U.S. will lose nearly $93 billion in federal tax revenue over a 10-year period if DACA recipients are unable to remain in the country.

Other

The evidence does not support allegations that immigrants (legal or illegal) are more violent that US natives. (cgo, 2020)

Pew Research published survey data on DACA in 2017: See Pew for these details

Some Thoughts

It is reasonable for citizens to be concerned about people who illegally enter the US.

Amnesty programs like DACA are risky if aliens discover that they need not follow US laws to enter the country and enjoy the benefits of living in the US.

Programs like DACA should be passed by Congress and not created by executive orders.

The economic arguments posted by Mr. X are not substantiated. It appears that participants in DACA made substantial contributions to the wellbeing of US citizens.

For a variety of reasons, the children and their families were not identified and deported before the children learned to live as if they were Americans.

Changing laws and policies that result in a harmful impact on those who followed the rules to apply for DACA status seems unjust.

Programs like DACA seem like a win-win if they help the US identify additional illegals, collect fees to help defray program costs, and encourage loyalty to their new homeland. But the win-win is dependent on participant compliance.

A path to legal residency rather than citizenship makes sense for those who have documented by their behavior that they are loyal to the US and contribute to the general welfare. This status should be conditional and subject to renewal.

Citizenship has special privileges so I am not sure this makes sense. If it did make sense, it would seem reasonable to require an extended period of lawful conduct, which is longer than for those who enter the US legally.

There is no reasonable moral burden to permit people who have entered the US illegally to remain in the US or have a path to citizenship if they have been convicted of a serious crime.

I realize the concept “serious crime” is vague but minor infractions of laws that cause no harm have been too often used as method of discrimination or harm toward people who live generally honorable lives compared to the norms of other citizens.

I am open to considering other facts and moral arguments. I am not interested in comments that insult others or contain mere opinions unsupported by evidence.

 

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