A Decade of DACA: Undocumented Youth Deserve a Permanent Solution

WASHINGTON—A decade ago today, President Barack Obama created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a critical initiative that has offered deportation protection and work authorization to hundreds of thousands of people who arrived in the United States as children.

The DACA initiative has survived multiple court battles and administrative attempts to terminate the program, while also receiving overwhelming support from the American public.  

The following statement is from Jeremy Robbins, executive director of the American Immigration Council:

"For the last decade, DACA has provided over 800,000 undocumented members of our communities across the United States the protections necessary to build their lives without the constant threat of being torn from their families and communities. DACA recipients are hard-working students, workers, entrepreneurs, innovators, and taxpayers who simply want to be able to provide for themselves and their families. We have forced them to live with uncertainty for far too long.

“On DACA’s 10th anniversary, we must commit to ending this uncertainty and do what is righ: providing certainty and stability for all members of our communities no matter where they were born. The overwhelming majority of Americans support allowing undocumented youth to continue to live and work in the United States through a more permanent solution.

“Congress has a legislative solution—the Dream Act—to create a path to lawful status and eventual citizenship for undocumented youth, including DACA recipients. It’s time for our elected leaders to finally do what is right and provide undocumented youth with the security and stability to live as full members of our country.”

The American Immigration Council has a range of research and other resources on DACA, including policy experts available to speak on policies designed to protect Dreamers and what is at stake for over 650,000 DACA beneficiaries across the country. The Council also has data on demographic and economic contributions of DACA recipients in each U.S. state and nationwide.

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For more information, contact:

Maria Frausto at the American Immigration Council, [email protected] or 202-507-7526.