20,000 Dreamers graduate from Texas high schools annually, with and without DACA
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Almost 20000 Dreamers graduate from Texas high schools annually, with and without DACA
Written by Obed Manuel, Report for America Corps Member/Staff Writer
Judith Juarez is looking forward to the independence that comes with being a college student and not having to wake up at the crack of dawn for high school.
But the 18-year-old senior and class president at her Dallas ISD magnet high school admits that there were times when she thought about dropping out.
It wasn’t due to a lack of motivation. It was because she thought that as an unauthorized immigrant who was brought to the U.S. when she was 18 months old, her career prospects would be limited.
“I thought, ‘What am I doing? Why am I taking all these AP courses? Why am I applying for college?’” Juarez said. “I’m going to get through all this and have to work at a diner or something.”
But Juarez put those thoughts aside and will now be one of about 17,000 Dreamers, unauthorized immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, who will graduate from Texas high schools this year, according to a new report from the Migration Policy Institute.
Estimates show that there may be as many as 3.6 million Dreamers in the U.S. and some experts believe these immigrants could be the key to replenishing the U.S. and Texas workforce and keeping jobs of all skill levels filled.
Texas economist Ray Perryman said that his own economic analyses have found that Dreamers and unauthorized immigrants in general have a net positive effect on the Texas economy.
Perryman said that beneficiaries of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program that grants two-year work permits and reprieve from deportation to unauthorized immigrants who meet specific criteria, are playing a key role in Texas’ economic output.
“With the legal protection and incentives for further education offered by DACA, recipients are likely to be particularly important to the U.S. economy, especially in light of labor shortages that must, to a significant degree, be filled by immigrants,” Perryman said.
The Migration Policy Institute found that about 98,000 Dreamers graduate from high schools around the country every year. Texas has the second highest number of graduates after California:
- California - 27,000
- Texas - 17,000
- Florida - 5,000
- New York - 4,000
- New Jersey - 4,000
Jeanne Batalova, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, said that about 125,000 Dreamers reach graduation ages of 18 or 19 every year.
Batalova and Jie Zong, an associate policy analyst for the institute, looked at data from the Census Bureau’s American Communities Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation to come up with their estimates.
“Unauthorized immigration has been a very contentious topic in the past 15 years. It didn’t start with our last presidential campaign, so we wondered whether how discussion might affect outcomes for Dreamers,” Batalova said.
DACA, in-state tuition possible motivators for Dreamers
Batalova said that state actions like Texas’ 2001 Dream Act, a law that allows unauthorized immigrants who graduate from Texas high schools to pay in-state tuition, probably serve as motivation for Texas Dreamers to finish high school.
Failed attempts to pass the DREAM Act, a law that would create a pathway to legal status for Dreamers, through Congress and the creation of DACA during Barack Obama’s presidency, may serve as catalysts for the Dreamer population around the country.
“What those policies had in common is that they created an incentive for students to graduate from high school and gave them options to pursue post-secondary education,” Batalova said.
Juarez, a DACA beneficiary, was 11 when DACA was created. She saved money and counted down the days until she turned 15, the age required to be considered for the program.
https://dallasnews.imgix.net/1556132...format&frame=1
Dreamer Judith Juarez, a senior at Irma L. Rangel Young Women's Leadership School, holds her graduation photo in her home on Tuesday, April 23, 2019, in Dallas. With a DACA permit, Juarez will be able to legally work and Texas law will allow her to pay in-state tuition at a public college.
(Ashley Landis/Staff Photographer)
When she finally got DACA, she was able to start working and get a learner’s driving permit. She feels she was able to grow up like a normal American teenager, like she was actually from the U.S.
Being in Texas, she said, she always knew college education was within reach. Now she’s considering studying communications to go into political campaign management.
In November, Texas House Rep. Kyle Biedermann, R-Fredericksburg, introduced HB 413, a measure that would eliminate in-state tuition for unauthorized immigrants.
He did not respond to a request for comment for this story, but released the following statement when he introduced the bill last year: "I am proud to fight for the taxpayer. Magnet policies that benefit illegal immigrants hurt citizens and those who immigrated here legally. We must remove these magnets and protect our border."
But Laura Collins, director of the George W. Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative, said that it’s in Texas’ best interest to continue allowing Texas Dreamers to pay in-state tuition and have access to training and licensing programs, because they will more than likely gain legal status at some point and Texas’ booming economy will need them.
“You’re really just hurting the state’s economic growth engine.
We have an abundance of jobs. There is opportunity here and if you want to keep that engine going, you need workers,” Collins said.
If anyone is falling through the cracks because they feel there is no hope for future career prospects, Texas may be missing out on a talented individual with much to contribute, Collins said.
“We’re creating a situation where we take someone who’s bright and we’re putting them in the job that doesn’t get the most out of them,” she said. “They need a job that meets their potential.”
The changing face of Dreamers and the fate of DACA
Batalova said the Dreamer population is beginning to look different because migration patterns have changed. Mexico is no longer the main driver of immigration to the U.S., and the two countries sending the most immigrants now are China and India, Batalova said.
“As the immigrant population diversifies, it will have a ripple effect on subsets of these populations,” Batalova said.
DACA is being kept alive by a series of federal court decisions that stopped the Trump administration from shuttering the program in September 2017. President Donald Trump asked Congress to find a solution and appealed to the Supreme Court to decide what should happen with DACA.
But the high court kicked the can down the road on deciding the program’s fate, neither granting nor rejecting Trump’s appeal. Now the program may live well into the 2020 presidential campaign and some DACA work permits may outlive Trump’s presidency.
Juarez will be able to work for about another year with her permit. If she's unable to renew her DACA permit due to a Supreme Court decision and Congress doesn't find a permanent solution before she graduates from college, she'll be unable to legally work at all.
But she’s hopeful that something will give because she believes hard work will always be rewarded.
“We are kids who grew up with immigrant parents and were taught to work to get what we want. We’re not expecting handouts,” Juarez said. “Why would you want to push that away?”
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/immi...ca-study-finds
