Dreamers and the University of California
The Dreamers are students brought here undocumented, as children, who, in California, are given and treated as any other students, with full human rights. This includes the right to have a drivers license, availability to any of our educational institutions with equal treatment, including financial aid and in-state tuition, work permits so that they are not underpaid, and privacy in their personnel files. For the last four years, they have been shielded from deportation by President Obama’s DACA program (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). The UC President, Janet Napolitano, devised DACA In 2012 when she was Secretary of Homeland Security.
The Presidents of over 600 universities have sent a letter to President Trump to maintain the DACA program.
This article is about the numbers of Dreamers, and economic arguments of their importance, which might appeal to a businessman, President Trump, who has not yet revealed his considerations of DACA. (I am not at all an expert on Dreamers and the associated issues involved, so don’t take this article with any authority.) President Trump has, however, ordered his administration to find any ways that they can to cut off federal funds to Sanctuary cities. This applies to all illegal immigrants, not necessarily DACA registered students. The administration is being sued that requiring local and state enforcement of immigration laws violates states’ rights under the tenth amendment.
Nationwide, there are 742,000 Dreamers. The state with the largest number is California, with 214,132. Second is Texas, with 119,188. Then come, in thousands, Illinois 41, New York 37, Florida 29, Arizona 27, North Carolina 27, Georgia 23, New Jersey 20, and Colorado 17. Of course, California is the largest state, with Texas second, and both are border states with Mexico.
The main country of origin of DACA recipients is Mexico, with 579,939. The next three largest are El Salvador with 26,742, Guatemala with 18,501, and Honduras with 17,332. Of the top 10, two are not in the Americas, South Korea with 8,613, and the Philippines with 4,506. Data are from June 30, 2016. Source: LA Times.
In California, admittances to Dreamers are called AB 540 waivers, and are 61,000 at community colleges, 10,000 at Cal State, and 3,700 at UC campuses. This is out of 2.8 million students overall (LA Times), and 252,000 in the UC system.
If DACA students are allowed to complete their educational goals and remain in the country, their contributions to our economy is estimated to be worth from 1 to 2.4 trillion dollars.
I look at them here as an investment in well educated and motivated students, and the loss that would be incurred by their deportation. The average yearly cost of K-12 education in California has risen to $11,000 per year, and slightly less in Texas. Thirteen years of education at that current equivalent value adds up to $143,000. Even if the average DACA students didn’t start in Kindergarten, they still have the value of their earlier education contained in them. Their dual language capability and culture knowledge is also an economic advantage with our close economic ties to Mexico and other contributing countries.
If the student goes to the UC, there are varying estimates of the value of a year here, but I am going with the new out-of-state tuition and fees cost of $40,644, which is comparable to private universities. For a four-year university degree, they then have the added value of $163,000.
From the view of an economist or businessman, why would you deport a trained $143,00 value high school graduate or a total $306,000 value university graduate? They would just go to a neighboring country and be hired by an industry that is competing with us, at no education cost to the neighboring industry. On top of that, we have and will increasingly have a shortage of highly trained talent, and will have to try to competitively import them from their own or competing countries.
