tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/dreamers-24037/articlesDreamers – The Conversation2024-03-08T04:01:43Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2251582024-03-08T04:01:43Z2024-03-08T04:01:43ZBiden defends immigration policy during State of the Union, blaming Republicans in Congress for refusing to act<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580628/original/file-20240308-24-r50pvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Joe Biden delivers his State of the Union address on March 7, 2024. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-delivers-the-annual-state-of-the-union-news-photo/2059263399?adppopup=true">Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>President Joe Biden delivered the annual <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/03/07/remarks-of-president-joe-biden-state-of-the-union-address-as-prepared-for-delivery-2/">State of the Union address</a> on March 7, 2024, casting a wide net on a range of major themes – the economy, abortion rights, threats to democracy, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine – that are preoccupying many Americans heading into the November presidential election.</em></p>
<p><em>The president also addressed massive increases in immigration at the southern border and the political battle in Congress over how to manage it. “We can fight about the border, or we can fix it. I’m ready to fix it,” Biden said.</em></p>
<p><em>But while Biden stressed that he wants to overcome political division and take action on immigration and the border, he cautioned that he will not “demonize immigrants,” as he said his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, does.</em> </p>
<p><em>“I will not separate families. I will not ban people from America because of their faith,” Biden said.</em></p>
<p><em>Biden’s speech comes as a <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4422273-immigration-overtakes-inflation-top-voter-concern-poll/">rising number of American voters</a> say that <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/611135/immigration-surges-top-important-problem-list.aspx">immigration is the country’s biggest problem</a>.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://gould.usc.edu/faculty/profile/jean-lantz-reisz/">Immigration law scholar Jean Lantz Reisz</a> answers four questions about why immigration has become a top issue for Americans, and the limits of presidential power when it comes to immigration and border security.</em> </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580622/original/file-20240308-21-t103cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="President Joe Biden stands surrounded by people in formal clothing and smiles. One man holds a cell phone camera close up to his face." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580622/original/file-20240308-21-t103cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580622/original/file-20240308-21-t103cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580622/original/file-20240308-21-t103cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580622/original/file-20240308-21-t103cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580622/original/file-20240308-21-t103cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580622/original/file-20240308-21-t103cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580622/original/file-20240308-21-t103cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">President Joe Biden arrives to deliver the State of the Union address at the US Capitol on March 7, 2024.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-arrives-to-deliver-the-state-of-the-news-photo/2067104727?adppopup=true">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>1. What is driving all of the attention and concern immigration is receiving?</h2>
<p>The unprecedented number of undocumented migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border right now has drawn national concern to the U.S. immigration system and the president’s enforcement <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/12/22/1221006083/immigration-border-election-presidential">policies at the border</a>. </p>
<p>Border security has always been part of the immigration debate about how to stop unlawful immigration.</p>
<p>But in this election, the immigration debate is also fueled by images of large groups of migrants crossing a river and crawling through <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/record-number-migrant-border-crossings-december-2023/">barbed wire fences</a>. There is also news of standoffs between Texas law enforcement and U.S. <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/24/texas-border-wire-supreme-court/">Border Patrol agents</a> and cities like New York and Chicago struggling to handle the influx of arriving migrants. </p>
<p>Republicans blame Biden for not taking action on what they say is an <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-doubles-warnings-migrant-crime-border-speech/story?id=107691336">“invasion”</a> at the U.S. border. Democrats blame Republicans for refusing to pass laws that would give the president the power to stop the <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-and-trump-s-dueling-border-visits-will-encapsulate-a-building-election-clash/ar-BB1j5jKy">flow of migration at the border</a>. </p>
<h2>2. Are Biden’s immigration policies effective?</h2>
<p>Confusion about immigration laws may be the reason people believe that Biden is not implementing effective policies at the border. </p>
<p>The U.S. passed a law in 1952 that gives any person arriving at the border or inside the U.S. the right to apply for asylum and the right to legally stay in the country, even if that person crossed the <a href="https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title8-section1158&num=0&edition=prelim">border illegally</a>. That law has not changed. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/trump-overruled/#immigration">Courts struck down</a> many of former President Donald Trump’s policies that tried to limit immigration. Trump was able to lawfully deport migrants at the border without processing their asylum claims during the COVID-19 pandemic under a public health law <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/what-is-title-42-and-what-does-it-mean-for-immigration-at-the-southern-border">called Title 42</a>. Biden continued that policy <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-is-title-42-policy-immigration-what-happens-ending-expiration/">until the legal justification for Title 42</a> – meaning the public health emergency – ended in 2023. </p>
<p>Republicans falsely attribute the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/15/migrant-encounters-at-the-us-mexico-border-hit-a-record-high-at-the-end-of-2023/">surge in undocumented migration</a> to the U.S. over the past three years to something they call Biden’s <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4414432-house-approves-resolution-denouncing-bidens-open-border-policies/">“open border” policy</a>. There is no such policy. </p>
<p>Multiple factors are driving increased migration to the U.S. </p>
<p>More people are leaving dangerous or difficult situations in <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/02/the-crisis-at-the-border-a-primer-for-confused-americans.html">their countries</a>, and some people have waited to migrate until <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/border-numbers-fy2023">after the COVID-19 pandemic</a> ended. People who smuggle migrants are also <a href="https://thehill.com/campaign-issues/immigration/3576180-human-smugglers-often-target-migrants-with-misinformation-on-social-media-watchdog/">spreading misinformation</a> to migrants about the ability to enter and stay in the U.S. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580236/original/file-20240306-24-y12r2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Joe Biden wears a black blazer and a black hat as he stands next to a bald white man wearing a green uniform and a white truck that says 'Border Patrol' in green" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580236/original/file-20240306-24-y12r2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580236/original/file-20240306-24-y12r2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580236/original/file-20240306-24-y12r2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580236/original/file-20240306-24-y12r2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580236/original/file-20240306-24-y12r2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580236/original/file-20240306-24-y12r2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580236/original/file-20240306-24-y12r2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Joe Biden walks with Jason Owens, the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, as he visits the U.S.-Mexico border in Brownsville, Texas, on Feb. 29, 2024.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-walks-with-jason-owens-chief-of-us-news-photo/2041441026?adppopup=true">Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>3. How much power does the president have over immigration?</h2>
<p>The president’s power regarding immigration is limited to enforcing existing immigration laws. But the president has broad authority over how to enforce those laws. </p>
<p>For example, the president can place every single immigrant unlawfully <a href="https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title8-section1103&num=0&edition=prelim">present in the U.S.</a> in deportation proceedings. Because there is not enough money or employees at federal agencies and courts to accomplish that, the president will usually choose to prioritize the deportation of certain immigrants, like those who have committed serious and violent crimes in the U.S. </p>
<p>The federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2023/12/29/immigrants-ice-border-deportations-2023/#">deported more than 142,000 immigrants</a> from October 2022 through September 2023, double the number of people it deported the previous fiscal year. </p>
<p>But under current law, the president does not have the power to summarily expel migrants who say they are afraid of returning to their country. The law requires the president to process their claims for asylum. </p>
<p>Biden’s ability to enforce immigration law also depends on a budget approved by Congress. <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/02/29/fact-sheet-impact-of-bipartisan-border-agreement-funding-on-border-operations/">Without congressional approval</a>, the president cannot spend money to build a wall, increase immigration detention facilities’ capacity or send more Border Patrol agents to process undocumented migrants entering the country.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580242/original/file-20240306-18-k0ch8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large group of people are seen sitting and standing along a tall brown fence in an empty area of brown dirt." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580242/original/file-20240306-18-k0ch8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580242/original/file-20240306-18-k0ch8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580242/original/file-20240306-18-k0ch8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580242/original/file-20240306-18-k0ch8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580242/original/file-20240306-18-k0ch8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580242/original/file-20240306-18-k0ch8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580242/original/file-20240306-18-k0ch8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Migrants arrive at the border between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, to surrender to American Border Patrol agents on March 5, 2024.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/groups-of-migrants-of-different-nationalities-arrive-at-the-news-photo/2054049040?adppopup=true">Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>4. How could Biden address the current immigration problems in this country?</h2>
<p>In early 2024, Republicans in the Senate refused to pass a bill – developed by a bipartisan team of legislators – that would have made it harder to get asylum and given Biden the power to stop <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigration-biden-border-authority/">taking asylum applications</a> when migrant crossings reached a <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/senate-vote-border-bill-aid-02-07-24/h_3263c78238d0d2de96a203fad7fd9e94">certain number</a>. </p>
<p>During his speech, Biden called this bill the “toughest set of border security reforms we’ve ever seen in this country.”</p>
<p>That bill would have also provided <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/senate-vote-border-bill-aid-02-07-24/h_3263c78238d0d2de96a203fad7fd9e94">more federal money</a> to help immigration agencies and courts quickly review more asylum claims and expedite the asylum process, which remains backlogged with millions of cases, Biden said. Biden said the bipartisan deal would also hire 1,500 more border security agents and officers, as well as 4,300 more asylum officers. </p>
<p>Removing this backlog in immigration courts could mean that some undocumented migrants, who now might wait six to eight years for an asylum hearing, would instead only wait six weeks, Biden said. That means it would be “highly unlikely” migrants would pay a large amount to be smuggled into the country, only to be “kicked out quickly,” Biden said. </p>
<p>“My Republican friends, you owe it to the American people to get this bill done. We need to act,” Biden said. </p>
<p>Biden’s remarks calling for Congress to pass the bill drew jeers from some in the audience. Biden quickly responded, saying that it was a bipartisan effort: “What are you against?” he asked. </p>
<p>Biden <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-weighs-invoking-executive-authority-stage-border-crackdown-212f/">is now considering</a> using section 212(f) of the <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/laws-and-policy/legislation/immigration-and-nationality-act">Immigration and Nationality Act</a> to get more control over immigration. This sweeping law allows the president to temporarily suspend or restrict the entry of all foreigners if their arrival is detrimental to the U.S.</p>
<p>This obscure law gained attention when Trump used it in January 2017 to implement a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-s-immigration-ban-raises-more-questions-answers-here-s-n1188946">travel ban</a> on foreigners from mainly Muslim countries. The Supreme Court upheld the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/01/world/americas/travel-ban-trump-how-it-works.html">travel ban in 2018</a>. </p>
<p>Trump again also signed an executive order in April 2020 that <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-s-immigration-ban-raises-more-questions-answers-here-s-n1188946">blocked foreigners who were seeking lawful permanent residency from entering the country</a> for 60 days, citing this same section of the Immigration and Nationality Act. </p>
<p>Biden did not mention any possible use of section 212(f) during his State of the Union speech. If the president uses this, it would likely be challenged in court. It is not clear that 212(f) would apply to people already in the U.S., and it conflicts with existing asylum law that gives people within the U.S. the right to seek asylum.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225158/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jean Lantz Reisz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A rising number of Americans say that immigration is the country’s biggest problem. Biden called for Congress to pass a bipartisan border and immigration bill during his State of the Union.Jean Lantz Reisz, Clinical Associate Professor of Law, Co-Director, USC Immigration Clinic, University of Southern CaliforniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2230722024-02-13T13:21:23Z2024-02-13T13:21:23ZImmigration reform has always been tough, and rarely happens in election years - 4 things to know<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575094/original/file-20240212-24-rrmn75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Migrants cross the border from Mexico into Texas on Feb. 6, 2024. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/migrants-cross-the-border-to-usa-through-gate-36-and-to-be-news-photo/1983631787?adppopup=true">Christian Torres/Anadolu via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Immigration is already a major polarizing issue in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Arrests for <a href="https://apnews.com/article/immigration-border-crossings-mexico-biden-18ac91ef502e0c5433f74de6cc629b32">illegal border crossings</a> from Mexico reached an all-time high in December 2023, and cities like New York and Chicago are struggling to provide housing and basic services for tens of thousands of <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/04/texas-migrants-new-york-bus-companies-lawsuit/#:%7E:text=As%20of%20Dec.,33%2C600%20migrants%20to%20New%20York.">migrants arriving from Texas</a>. </p>
<p>In early February 2024, a group of senators <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-unveils-118-billion-bipartisan-bill-tighten-border-security-aid-2024-02-04/">proposed new immigration legislation</a> that would have slowed the migrant influx at the border. The bill would have made it harder for migrants to both apply for and receive asylum, which is the legal right to stay in the U.S. because of fear of persecution if they return back home. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/congress-border-deal-rejected-lankford-immigration-045fdf42d42b26270ee1f5f73e8bc1b0">But the bill</a>, like others proposed in recent years, quickly faltered after Republicans opposed it. </p>
<p>This is far from the first time that Democrats and Republicans have failed to pass legislation that was intended to improve the country’s immigration system. </p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Y1qVRfUAAAAJ&hl=en">scholar of immigration and refugee policy</a>. Here are four key reasons why meaningful immigration policy change has been so difficult to achieve – and why it remains a pipe dream:</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575096/original/file-20240212-20-e4zl2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People wearing dark clothing and jackets reach for and hold bags of bread." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575096/original/file-20240212-20-e4zl2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575096/original/file-20240212-20-e4zl2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575096/original/file-20240212-20-e4zl2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575096/original/file-20240212-20-e4zl2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575096/original/file-20240212-20-e4zl2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575096/original/file-20240212-20-e4zl2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575096/original/file-20240212-20-e4zl2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Newly arrived migrants receive a meal from a church in Manhattan on Jan. 24, 2024. According to New York Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, 172,400 migrants have arrived in the city since the spring of 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-mostly-newly-arrived-migrants-receive-an-afternoon-news-photo/1958071905?adppopup=true">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>1. Immigration reform has always been hard</h2>
<p>The U.S. has faced major roadblocks every time it has tried to achieve immigration reform. </p>
<p>For decades after World War II, presidents, lawmakers and activists tried and failed to revamp the nation’s immigration system to remove <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/erika-lee/america-for-americans/9781541672598/?lens=basic-books">racist quotas based on national origin</a>, set in the 1920s, that restricted all but northern and western Europeans from immigrating to the U.S. </p>
<p>Change finally came in 1965, when Congress passed the <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/laws-and-policy/legislation/immigration-and-nationality-act">Immigration and Nationality Act</a>. This required extensive negotiations. The final bipartisan bargain <a href="https://www.npr.org/2015/10/03/445339838/the-unintended-consequences-of-the-1965-immigration-act">removed racist quotas but appeased those who wanted to restrict immigration</a> by prioritizing new immigrants’ connections to family already in the country – a preference that lawmakers thought would favor Europeans.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691088051/dividing-lines">last big immigration reform</a> happened in 1986, when Congress passed the <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/latinx-civil-rights/irca">Immigration Reform and Control Act</a>. Year after year, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Congressional bills to address the porous border with Mexico and the undocumented immigrant population living in the country went nowhere. After many false starts, an uneasy Left-Right majority finally agreed in 1986 on a package that sanctioned employers who hired undocumented immigrants, provided legal status to roughly 3 million undocumented migrants, created a new farmworker program, and increased border security resources.</p>
<p>For almost four decades, Washington has been stuck in neutral on this issue.</p>
<h2>2. The US is more polarized on immigration than ever before</h2>
<p>Americans have been at odds over how to handle immigration since the nation’s founding. But partisan and ideological polarization over border control and immigrants’ rights <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo221112082.html">is greater today</a> than any other time.</p>
<p>Over the past 20 years, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-politics-of-immigration-9780190235307?cc=us&lang=en&">Democratic and Republican voters</a> and politicians alike became more firmly <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo28424644.html">aligned with rival</a> pro- and anti-immigration rights movements.</p>
<p>In 2008, 46% of Republicans and 39% of Democrats said they thought immigration to the U.S. <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/395882/immigration-views-remain-mixed-highly-partisan.aspx">should be decreased</a>. In 2023, GOP support for decreased immigration soared to 73%, compared with just 18% of Democrats who said they wanted that. Today, Republicans are almost three times as likely as Democrats to see unauthorized immigration as a very big national problem – <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/06/21/inflation-health-costs-partisan-cooperation-among-the-nations-top-problems/">70% versus 25%</a>.</p>
<p>Despite growing polarization, leaders from both parties have tried a few times in recent decades to work together on bipartisan reform. </p>
<p>In 2006, former President George W. Bush, a Republican, joined Senators Edward Kennedy, a Democrat, John McCain, a member of the GOP, and other lawmakers in a coalition that pushed for comprehensive immigration reform. Like the 1986 reform, their proposal included stronger border security measures, a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants and a new, expansive program for employers to legally host foreign workers. </p>
<p>Right-wing pundits and anti-immigrant activists vigorously mobilized <a href="https://cis.org/Historical-Overview-Immigration-Policy">against the legislation,</a> and the GOP-controlled House of Representatives killed the bill.</p>
<p>In 2013, a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/06/24/getting-to-maybe">bipartisan group of politicians called the “Gang of Eight”</a> spearheaded a new reform. Their bill reflected a familiar package: a new path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, more work visas for skilled foreign immigrants, and a guest worker program. The <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/immigration-bill-2013-senate-passes-093530">Senate passed the legislation</a>, but the <a href="https://www.salon.com/2007/06/26/immigration_22/">measure then died</a> in the House. The Republican majority there refused to vote on what they considered an amnesty bill.</p>
<p>Partisan warfare over immigration reached a fevered pitch during the Donald Trump presidency. Liberals, for example, rallied against Trump’s <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/01/a-weekend-of-protest-against-trumps-immigration-ban/514953/">ban on immigrants from some Muslim countries</a>, and conservatives fretted over <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/donald-trump-the-migrant-caravan-and-a-manufactured-crisis-at-the-us-border">caravans of migrants crossing into the country</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575364/original/file-20240213-30-wm3195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Kyrsten Sinema wears a red dress and red framed glasses and gestures with her hands, while people stand around her and hold out phones and tape recorders." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575364/original/file-20240213-30-wm3195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575364/original/file-20240213-30-wm3195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575364/original/file-20240213-30-wm3195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575364/original/file-20240213-30-wm3195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575364/original/file-20240213-30-wm3195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575364/original/file-20240213-30-wm3195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575364/original/file-20240213-30-wm3195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">US Senator Kyrsten Sinema, one of the co-sponsors of the Senate bi-partisan border and immigration bill, speaks to reporters in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 5, 2024.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sen-kyrsten-sinema-speaks-to-reporters-at-the-u-s-capitol-news-photo/1988744214?adppopup=true">Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. There’s little bipartisan agreement over what the problem actually is</h2>
<p>Most Americans generally agree that the nation’s immigration system is broken. Yet different political groups cannot agree on what exactly is wrong and how to solve it.</p>
<p>For some Republicans, including former Trump, the problem is lax border control and permissive policies that allow dangerous migrants to enter and stay in the country. Right-wing politicians and commentators, like Tucker Carlson, have exploited these anxieties, warning that large-scale immigration will <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/15/us/replacement-theory-shooting-tucker-carlson.html">“replace” white Americans</a>. Their solution is to militarize the nation’s borders, deport undocumented immigrants living in the country, and make it harder for people to legally stay in the country. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.hoover.org/research/mobility-socialism-how-anti-immigration-politics-advances-socialism-and-impedes-capitalism">There are also conservatives</a> who think immigration is consistent with the principles of individual liberty, entrepreneurship and national economic growth. They support more visas for highly skilled newcomers, especially those with strong science and technology backgrounds.</p>
<p>Democrats <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/09/08/republicans-and-democrats-have-different-top-priorities-for-u-s-immigration-policy/">aligned with the immigrant rights</a> movement believe that the country is obliged to address the humanitarian needs of migrants seeking asylum at the southern border. They argue that millions of undocumented people <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520287266/lives-in-limbo">living in the shadows</a> of American life creates an undemocratic caste system, and they think this can be solved by creating pathways for most undocumented immigrants to get legal permanent residency. </p>
<p>Moderate Democrats <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2024/02/07/kyrsten-sinema-border-bill-impact-arizona-election/72509061007/">advocate tougher restrictions to address migrant surges</a> that overwhelm Border Patrol agents and other officials along the U.S.-Mexican border. Their solutions include hiring thousands of new immigration officers, strengthening physical and technological barriers along the border, and making the asylum program more efficient. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575097/original/file-20240212-16-pkh45o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Joe Biden wears dark sunglasses and a suit and walks, in front of men in green uniforms, along a large fence. The sun shines through it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575097/original/file-20240212-16-pkh45o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575097/original/file-20240212-16-pkh45o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575097/original/file-20240212-16-pkh45o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575097/original/file-20240212-16-pkh45o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575097/original/file-20240212-16-pkh45o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575097/original/file-20240212-16-pkh45o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575097/original/file-20240212-16-pkh45o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Joe Biden walks along the U.S.-Mexico border fence in January 2023 in El Paso, Texas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-walks-along-the-us-mexico-border-fence-news-photo/1246095870?adppopup=true">Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. Immigration reform is especially messy in a presidential election year</h2>
<p>Presidential election years are fertile ground for politicking on immigrants and borders, but not lasting policy reform.</p>
<p>In 2021, President Joe Biden and his supporters introduced an <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2024/02/07/kyrsten-sinema-border-bill-impact-arizona-election/72509061007/">immigration bill</a> that would offer a pathway to legal residency for nearly all undocumented immigrants. But the measure never gained the 60 votes necessary to win passage in the Senate. </p>
<p>Now, Biden finds himself <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4394262-biden-approval-rating-on-handling-immigration-reaches-all-time-low-poll/">underwater with voters, including Democrats, on immigration</a> and the perceived chaos at the border. </p>
<p>Eager to protect themselves in the 2024 election and to alleviate the headaches that migrant surges at the border present, Biden and other top Democrats temporarily set aside past blueprints for legalizing undocumented people and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-unveils-118-billion-bipartisan-bill-tighten-border-security-aid-2024-02-04/">joined Republican negotiators</a> in advancing one of the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/border-deal-to-cut-illegal-immigration-is-released-after-months-of-talks-26a66211">toughest border security measures</a> in decades. This bill, which the Senate introduced on Feb. 5, 2024, would have dedicated US$20.2 billion to strengthen border security, and it would have made it much harder for immigrants to apply for or receive asylum. </p>
<p>Republican border hawks had long demanded more restrictive immigration rules. But they did not embrace this deal. When Trump eviscerated the legislation, intent on keeping problems at the border as a campaign issue, Republican members of Congress lined up to quickly kill the legislation.</p>
<p>The death of the bipartisan Senate border deal is a triumph of election-year grandstanding over governing. Yet its demise also reflects a much longer trend of ideological conflict and partisan warfare that has made congressional gridlock on immigration reform a defining feature of contemporary American politics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223072/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Tichenor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Immigration reform has always been hard to accomplish. As the U.S. enters an election year, bipartisan reform now appears out of reach.Daniel Tichenor, Professor of Political Science, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1903152022-10-11T12:17:32Z2022-10-11T12:17:32ZYoung immigrants are looking to social media to engage in politics and elections – even if they are not eligible to vote<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488360/original/file-20221005-23-lqzury.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Immigrant advocates protest near the U.S. Capitol on June 15, 2022 </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/immigration-advocates-rally-to-urge-congress-to-pass-permanent-for-picture-id1241326933">Drew Angerer/Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Immigrants’ political power is on the rise in the United States. </p>
<p>The number of eligible immigrant voters nearly doubled from about 12 million in 2000 to more than <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/02/26/naturalized-citizens-make-up-record-one-in-ten-u-s-eligible-voters-in-2020/">23 million</a> in 2020. </p>
<p>Immigrant voters <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/02/26/u-s-immigrants-are-rising-in-number-but-just-half-are-eligible-to-vote/">tend to be older</a> than U.S.-born voters, but immigrants ages 18 to 37 still made up 20% of all immigrant voters in 2020.</p>
<p>We are a team of scholars and students across disciplines and universities researching immigrant youths’ civic development – and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118x221103890">we think it’s</a> important to recognize that young immigrants are also playing a key role in galvanizing older immigrants to vote, primarily by connecting with them via social media. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118x221103890">Our research</a> shows that online sites and apps like Twitter are key for young immigrants – both people who were born outside of the U.S. and those who are second-generation immigrants – as ways to engage in politics. Many young immigrants use social media to follow news in their local communities, as well as in their countries of origin. They also use it to organize protests and encourage others to vote.</p>
<p>This is true even when these young people are not eligible to vote because of their immigration status. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A screenshot from a social made page shows a young female user who posted the words, 'A vote for Trump is a vote against my family, my friends, health care, LGBTQ plus people, people of color, undocumented immigrants, the poor, climate, etc. Vote for Biden friends. Vote trump out." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484724/original/file-20220914-9055-moa09n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484724/original/file-20220914-9055-moa09n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=137&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484724/original/file-20220914-9055-moa09n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484724/original/file-20220914-9055-moa09n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=137&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484724/original/file-20220914-9055-moa09n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=172&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484724/original/file-20220914-9055-moa09n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=172&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484724/original/file-20220914-9055-moa09n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=172&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Young immigrants have been found to use social media to galvanize others in their community to vote.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sara Wilf, Elena Maker Castro and Tania Quiles.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A key issue</h2>
<p>Immigration is a core issue for many voters in the upcoming midterm elections. An August 2022 <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/08/23/midterm-election-preferences-voter-engagement-views-of-campaign-issues/">Pew Research poll</a> found that nearly 50% of registered voters reported immigration was “very important” to them in the November 2022 election.</p>
<p>Some Republican politicians, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and others who are also up for re-election, have focused on immigration in their <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/15/politics/desantis-gop-base-migrants-massachusetts/index.html">campaigns</a> by pointing to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/number-migrants-crossing-border-hits-another-record-surges-migration-n-rcna34030">record numbers</a> of migrants crossing the U.S. border. Republican politicians have also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/us/desantis-florida-migrants-marthas-vineyard.html">relocated thousands</a> of migrants to liberal places like Washington, D.C., New York and Massachusetts over the past several months.</p>
<p>President Joe Biden’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/01/20/fact-sheet-president-biden-sends-immigration-bill-to-congress-as-part-of-his-commitment-to-modernize-our-immigration-system/">plan to revamp</a> the country’s immigration system and provide a path for about 11 million undocumented residents to gain citizenship, meanwhile, remains <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1177/text">stalled in Congress</a>. </p>
<p>Over the past several years, though, young immigrants – people ages 18 to 23 who were born in other countries, or whose parents were – have helped lead national movements to provide a conditional path to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants, resulting in the 2021 passage of the <a href="https://iamerica.org/daca#final%20daca%20rule">DREAM Act</a>. This policy <a href="https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/dream-act-overview">gives millions</a> of undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children the right to stay in the country. </p>
<p>The DREAMer movement <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/cd.311">relied heavily</a> on social media to spread information and encourage people to take action. Based on immigrant youths’ prior successes mobilizing their communities for political change, we believe that their online political engagement could have implications for the 2022 midterms.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1323706101217415168"}"></div></p>
<h2>Mobilizing others</h2>
<p>Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118x221103890">research study</a> in 2020 explored how immigrant youth ages 18 to 23 used social media to participate in politics. We took 2,300 screenshots of political tweets from January through November 2020, drawing from a sample of 32 young immigrants’ public Twitter feeds that we found through national immigrant youth networks, like <a href="https://unitedwedream.org">United We Dream</a>. </p>
<p>Based on the content of their Twitter profiles and posts, we were confident that they were all actual immigrant youth residing in the U.S. We then contacted all of them through Twitter about the study, and the majority confirmed their age and immigrant status. We went on to analyze the screenshots to identify trends in how youth were politically engaged online. </p>
<p>We also conducted interviews with 11 people from the sample, further confirming that we had recruited youth whose Twitter profiles accurately represented their real identities. Several indicated either in their Twitter profiles and tweets or in the interviews that they were not eligible to vote due to their documentation status.</p>
<p>We found that young immigrants use Twitter to educate their followers about political issues and processes in the U.S. and abroad – and to share both online and in-person opportunities to protest or vote.</p>
<p>These young people appeared to intentionally target their ethnic and regional communities in their social media outreach. </p>
<p>For example, some youth <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118x221103890">in our June 2022 study</a> called on their followers to translate educational resources on racial justice into different languages to share with their families. </p>
<p>Others provided voter registration guides in multiple languages, alerted followers about political candidates who shared an ethnic or regional identity, or encouraged particular ethnic communities – such as South Asians – to vote. </p>
<p>In interviews, youth also described bringing political conversations from their phones to the dinner table and discussing news they had read online with their parents. </p>
<p>Some participants also shared that they posted on social media with the explicit intention of shifting their family members’ political views. </p>
<p>One person we interviewed in 2020 who had ancestry in the Philippines and Belize noted that he “realized the importance of educating people and having those difficult conversations,” particularly with his family and friends. </p>
<p>Valeria, a college senior originally from Puerto Rico, also explained how Facebook was “the family social media platform” where she raised awareness about political issues. </p>
<p>“The way that I kind of look at it is at least I’m planting a seed, right? I’m planting an idea, at least I’m helping others, at least hear what’s going on,” said Valeria, who also asked to use a pseudonym, in a 2020 interview with our team that was featured in the 2022 study.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A screenshot from a social media page shows a user named Amit Jani encouraging voters who are Asian or Pacifc Islanders to attend an online call for Joe Biden's election" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484723/original/file-20220914-11002-48cwta.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484723/original/file-20220914-11002-48cwta.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484723/original/file-20220914-11002-48cwta.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484723/original/file-20220914-11002-48cwta.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484723/original/file-20220914-11002-48cwta.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484723/original/file-20220914-11002-48cwta.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484723/original/file-20220914-11002-48cwta.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A screenshot from the authors’ study shows a Tweet from a young immigrant in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sara Wilf, Elena Maker Castro and Tania Quiles</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>From online to offline engagement</h2>
<p>Immigrant youths’ online political engagement reflects larger trends in the U.S. </p>
<p>Approximately 46% of U.S. teens today use the internet “almost constantly,” <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social-media-and-technology-2022/">compared with</a> just 24% who said the same in 2014. </p>
<p>Alongside this surge in internet use, more young people are using social media to educate others about social and political topics, hold politicians accountable and provide their followers with opportunities to take action through climate and political movements like <a href="https://fridaysforfuture.org">Fridays for Future</a> and <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com">Black Lives Matter</a>.</p>
<p>Online political engagement has important consequences for offline political behaviors. </p>
<p>Indeed, nearly a quarter of U.S. adults report that they have <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/15/23-of-users-in-us-say-social-media-led-them-to-change-views-on-issue-some-cite-black-lives-matter/">changed their views</a> on a political issue because of social media. Online political engagement has also been shown to result in more young people participating <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118x.2013.871318">in protests</a> and encouraging people <a href="https://doi.org/10.3386/w28849">to vote</a>. </p>
<p>Our findings align with <a href="https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/publication/downloads/Democratic-Citizenship_Immigrants-Civic-Political-Engagement.pdf">prior research</a> showing that immigrant youth are politically educating and mobilizing their families and community members. </p>
<p>A survey of people who were allowed to stay in the U.S. because of the DREAM Act prior to the 2020 elections found that <a href="https://unitedwedream.org/resources/amid-changes-to-the-daca-program-and-covid-19-daca-recipients-are-fired-up-and-civically-engaged/">nearly 95%</a> of them were planning to encourage family and friends to vote. </p>
<p>Immigrant youths’ online political engagement has several potential implications for the 2022 midterm elections. </p>
<p>First, as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118x221103890">our 2022 study</a> found, immigrant youth are using social media to influence their parents’ opinions on political issues like racial justice and teach them how to register to vote. </p>
<p>Because of the large impact immigrant voters may have on the 2022 midterms, <a href="https://www.azmirror.com/blog/new-voter-bloc-of-naturalized-citizens-might-swing-arizona-midterms/">particularly in swing states</a>, immigrant youths’ online political engagement could play a role in shaping the elections’ outcome. </p>
<p><em>Ph.D. students <a href="https://luskin.ucla.edu/person/bethany-murray">Bethany Murray</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=E9L2f3AAAAAJ&hl=en">J. Abigail Saavedra</a> and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lamont-Bryant">Lamont Bryant</a>, as well as three undergraduate students, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Kedar-Garzon-Gupta-2229185643">Kedar Garzón Gupta</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaime-garcia-0a1893196/?trk=public_profile_browsemap_profile-result-card_result-card_full-click">Jaime Garcia</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/aditir19/">Aditi Rudra</a>, and UCLA Professor <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xA4XsTcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Laura Wray-Lake</a> are all members of the team that carried out research for the study highlighted in this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190315/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sara Wilf receives funding from the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute for a research study related to this article.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elena Maker Castro receives funding from the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute for a research study related to this article. Elena also receives funding from the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities to support her graduate research career. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Taina B Quiles receives funding from the Ford Foundation to support her graduate research career. </span></em></p>The number of immigrant voters is on the rise – and research shows that for young immigrants, social media is where they are primarily wading into politics.Sara Wilf, PhD student in social welfare, University of California, Los AngelesElena Maker Castro, Doctoral Candidate, University of California, Los AngelesTaina Quiles, PhD candidate, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1575492021-03-23T12:30:51Z2021-03-23T12:30:51ZCitizenship for the ‘Dreamers’? 6 essential reads on DACA and immigration reform<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390962/original/file-20210322-19-1lmbaxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C41%2C5568%2C3659&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The American Dream and Promise Act, also known as House Resolution 6, would create a path to citizenship for immigrant 'Dreamers' – but it has to pass the Senate first. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/speaker-of-the-house-nancy-pelosi-and-senate-democratic-news-photo/1181972855?adppopup=true">Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United States could eventually grant citizenship to roughly 2.5 million undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/6">American Dream and Promise Act of 2021</a>, which passed in the Democrat-dominated House of Representatives on March 18, would give a group known as the “Dreamers” permanent resident status for 10 years. They could then apply to be naturalized as U.S. citizens.</p>
<p>Only nine House Republicans voted for the bill, so in its current form it is unlikely to pass the Senate, which is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans. For over a decade, all congressional efforts to protect Dreamers <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2010/12/dream-act-dies-in-senate-046573">have died in the Senate</a>.</p>
<p>In 2012, President Barack Obama bypassed Congress with an executive order to help this group of immigrants. The <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2012/08/15/deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-who-can-be-considered">Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals</a>, or DACA, granted the temporary right to live, study and work to about 800,000 undocumented immigrants age 30 or younger who had come to the U.S. before age 16.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/09/05/546423550/trump-signals-end-to-daca-calls-on-congress-to-act">rescinded DACA in fall 2017</a>, asking Congress to resolve the Dreamers’ legal limbo by March 2018. Congress hasn’t passed any legislation to resolve Dreamers’ status; the American Dream and Promise Act is an effort to attempt that. </p>
<p>Here’s some key background and expert analysis on the “Dreamers” and DACA as the debate advances to the Senate.</p>
<h2>1. DACA’s results</h2>
<p>Researchers who evaluated DACA found the program benefited both Dreamers and the United States. </p>
<p>Wayne Cornelius, a professor emeritus of U.S.-Mexican relations at the University of California, San Diego, <a href="https://theconversation.com/post-daca-how-congress-can-replace-obamas-program-and-make-it-even-better-83547">led a research team that interviewed dozens of DACA recipients in 2014</a>. He found that work permits enabled them to get higher-paying jobs. </p>
<p>“This made college more affordable and increased their tax contributions. DACA [also encouraged] them to invest more in their education because they knew legal employment would be available when they completed their degree,” Cornelius wrote in 2017.</p>
<p>A survey conducted earlier that year of some 3,000 DACA recipients found that 97% were currently employed or enrolled in school, and many had started their own businesses. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390964/original/file-20210322-15-tp7djm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Line of several dozen young adults, some with young children, standing in the sun" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390964/original/file-20210322-15-tp7djm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390964/original/file-20210322-15-tp7djm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390964/original/file-20210322-15-tp7djm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390964/original/file-20210322-15-tp7djm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390964/original/file-20210322-15-tp7djm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390964/original/file-20210322-15-tp7djm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390964/original/file-20210322-15-tp7djm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Young immigrants line up to apply for DACA on Aug. 15, 2012, in Los Angeles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/hundreds-of-people-line-up-to-receive-assitance-in-filing-news-photo/150318934?adppopup=true">Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But DACA had “significant limitations,” according to Cornelius. Because their work authorization had to be renewed every two years, for example, some employers were reluctant to hire Dreamers. </p>
<h2>2. Undocumented stress</h2>
<p>Still, research found, DACA enabled recipients “to further their education and obtain jobs and health insurance,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-daca-affected-the-mental-health-of-undocumented-young-adults-83341">wrote migration specialists Elizabeth Aranda and Elizabeth Vaquera</a> in September 2017.</p>
<p>The program gave the Dreamers “peace of mind – something that, until then, was unfamiliar to them.”</p>
<h2>3. DACA and the wall</h2>
<p>Nearly 80% of DACA recipients came from Mexico. So when the Trump administration in September 2017 set DACA protections to expire within six months, the decision affected Mexico, too.</p>
<p>“Ending DACA exposes 618,342 undocumented young Mexicans” to deportation, wrote <a href="https://theconversation.com/could-trump-be-holding-dreamers-hostage-to-make-mexico-pay-for-his-border-wall-82727">political scientist Luis Gómez Romero</a>. </p>
<p>Gómez Romero said the DACA decision could be read as “a power play in Trump’s ongoing battle with the government of Mexico” over its refusal to pay for a border wall.</p>
<h2>4. Congressional battles</h2>
<p>By early 2018, with DACA soon to expire, Congress was in <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-path-to-citizenship-for-1-8-million-will-leave-out-nearly-half-of-all-dreamers-90899">a “scramble for a solution,”</a> according to Kevin Johnson, a dean and professor of Chicana/o studies at the University of California, Davis. That month, a congressional showdown over the Dreamers closed the federal government for 69 hours.</p>
<p>While “some conservatives have balked at the idea of giving ‘amnesty’ to any lawbreakers,” he wrote, some progressives found DACA too narrow. </p>
<p>According to the Migration Policy Initiative, DACA excluded about 1 million unauthorized immigrants who met most criteria for DACA but had not completed their education, had committed a crime or feared applying to DACA because of worry their undocumented parents could be deported.</p>
<p>Trump reentered the fray in January 2018 with a proposed path to legalization for 1.8 million Dreamers. The trade-off for siding with Democrats: Congress had to fund his U.S.-Mexico border wall. </p>
<p>That proposal, too, failed.</p>
<h2>5. Supreme Court decisions</h2>
<p>The Dreamers’ plight has forced the Supreme Court to get involved on several occasions. </p>
<p>In 2017 the court issued an injunction on Trump’s termination of the program, allowing DACA recipients to renew their protected status for another two-year period while other lawsuits proceeded. In June 2020, the court ruled the Trump administration could not actually dismantle DACA because it had not provided adequate justification for doing so.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390963/original/file-20210322-15-1lhkn8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Group of young people hold up signs rendering 'Home is Here' and 'Here to Stay' with Supreme Court in background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390963/original/file-20210322-15-1lhkn8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390963/original/file-20210322-15-1lhkn8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390963/original/file-20210322-15-1lhkn8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390963/original/file-20210322-15-1lhkn8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390963/original/file-20210322-15-1lhkn8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390963/original/file-20210322-15-1lhkn8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390963/original/file-20210322-15-1lhkn8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dreamers celebrate the Supreme Court’s DACA decision on June 18, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/dreamers-and-daca-supporters-rally-outside-of-the-u-s-news-photo/1220896140?adppopup=true">Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That gave the Dreamers another respite, but DACA remained in danger because the 2020 ruling “was not about whether the president of the United States has the authority to rescind DACA,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-ruling-on-dreamers-sends-a-clear-message-to-the-white-house-you-have-to-tell-the-truth-141099">wrote political scientist Morgan Marietta of the University of Massachusetts, Lowell</a>. “All of the parties involved agreed that he does.”</p>
<p>The case merely confirmed that a president cannot lie about the rationale underlying his executive orders. </p>
<p>The justices’ narrow decision left open the “possibility that the administration could try to rescind DACA at a later date,” wrote Marietta.</p>
<h2>6. Biden and immigration reform</h2>
<p>Joe Biden’s election forestalled that. His administration is pushing Congress to undertake comprehensive immigration reform that would create pathways to citizenship not only for the Dreamers but also for other undocumented immigrants, including farmworkers.</p>
<p>Any immigration overhaul must tackle a <a href="https://theconversation.com/severed-families-raided-workplaces-and-a-climate-of-fear-assessing-trumps-immigration-crackdown-147344">host of new challenges created over the past four years</a>, according to Miranda Cady Hallett, a Central America immigration expert at the University of Dayton.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Trump made over 400 changes to immigration policy, by Hallett’s tally, including barring immigrants from several Muslim-majority countries and separating families at the border. </p>
<p>While many presidents have deported large numbers of undocumented immigrants, Trump’s immigration enforcement was “more random and punitive,” writes Hallett. It “vastly increas[ed] criminal prosecutions for immigration-related offenses and remov[ed] people who have been in the U.S. longer.” </p>
<p>That includes the Dreamers. </p>
<p>After a decade of legal battles and political threats, the Dreamers aren’t so young anymore. Many in the original group of 800,000 are pushing 40.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157549/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The House passed a bill creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children. Here’s what you need to know about the Dreamers and DACA.Catesby Holmes, International Editor | Politics Editor, The Conversation USLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1410992020-06-18T19:35:31Z2020-06-18T19:35:31ZSupreme Court ruling on Dreamers sends a clear message to the White House: You have to tell the truth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342820/original/file-20200618-41200-19no40t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3600%2C2441&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters celebrate the Supreme Court ruling.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Supreme-Court-Immigration/12eefed671404c9c8633b53b60faec28/2/0">AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When it came down to it, the fate of 700,000 immigrants brought to U.S. as children hung on a simple question: Does the White House have to tell the whole truth in justifying its move to deport them?</p>
<p>On June 18, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/us/trump-daca-supreme-court.html">Supreme Court said “yes.”</a></p>
<p>In a 5-to-4 decision that came as a major blow to President Trump, the justices ruled that the administration could not proceed with plans to dismantle <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/09/06/548819221/trump-administration-rescinds-daca-calls-on-congress-to-replace-it">Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals</a>, or DACA. The Obama-era provision halted the deportation of undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. at an early age, often referred to as Dreamers. Its provisions allow for those young people to live and work in the U.S. although doesn’t provide a path to citizenship.</p>
<p>DACA will now stay in place…for the time being.</p>
<p>In ruling against the White House, the Supreme Court did hold out the possibility that the administration could try to rescind DACA at a later date. Only next time, they would have to provide adequate reasoning for doing so.</p>
<p>Writing <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-587_5ifl.pdf">the majority opinion</a>, Chief Justice John Roberts explained: “We do not decide whether DACA or its rescission are sound policies. The wisdom of those decisions is none of our concern.” He continued: “We address only whether the agency complied with the procedural requirement that it provide a reasoned explanation for its action.” And it is here the Supreme Court found the administration wanting.</p>
<p>Trump responded by tweeting that the ruling was “horrible & politically charged.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1273633632742191106"}"></div></p>
<p>From the beginning, this case was not about whether the president of the United States has the authority to rescind DACA. <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-587_5ifl.pdf#page=14">All of the parties involved agreed that he does</a>. Rather, the question was whether under U.S. law, the executive branch has to give complete and accurate reasons for its actions. </p>
<p>From my perspective as a <a href="https://www.routledge.com/A-Citizens-Guide-to-the-Constitution-and-the-Supreme-Court-Constitutional/Marietta/p/book/9780415843812">scholar of constitutional politics</a>, the fact that the Supreme Court has now answered “yes” has broad ramifications. It could usher in a new era in which the Supreme Court and many lower courts judge the evasion or candor of public officials. </p>
<p>A “no,” on the other hand, would have given carte blanche to the executive branch to avoid public accountability and offer less-than-full reasons for doing what it does. </p>
<h2>The truth?</h2>
<p>The core of the case became clear during oral arguments in November.</p>
<p>Advocates for DACA recipients and the government both seemed to agree that the court’s role was only to determine if the procedure the Trump administration followed was adequate under congressional laws, especially the <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/05/the-legal-flaw-with-ditching-daca-215579">Administrative Procedure Act</a>. The case was about procedure, not policy.</p>
<p>Perhaps the key exchange in November’s arguments was a fascinating <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/audio/2019/18-587">exchange</a> between Justice Brett Kavanaugh <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2019/18-587_1bn2.pdf#page=62">and Ted Olson</a>, the advocate for DACA recipients:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Justice Kavanaugh: Do you agree that the executive has the legal authority to rescind DACA?</p>
<p>Mr. Olson: Yes.</p>
<p>Justice Kavanaugh: Okay. So the question then comes down to the explanation.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The whole truth?</h2>
<p>Trump’s position on Dreamers has shifted over time. In the early days of his presidency, he <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-press-conference/">told reporters</a> that he would show “great heart” over the issue, adding that there were some “absolutely incredible kids” in the program. </p>
<p>But by the fall of 2019, Trump was portraying Dreamers in a different light, suggesting that “some are very tough, hardened criminals.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1194219655717642240"}"></div></p>
<p>Different explanations for his decision to rescind DACA were heard by the Supreme Court.</p>
<p>The administration argued that DACA was unconstitutional to begin with, on the grounds that the executive order from President Obama <a href="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2017/images/09/05/daca.talking.points%5B8%5D.pdf">exceeded executive authority</a>.</p>
<p>Advocates for the DACA recipients offered alternative explanations. They argued that the White House is willing to accept the high costs to so many current residents in order to achieve their political goal of reducing the number of unauthorized immigrants. Or as Justice Sonia Sotomayor phrased it, this is a “political decision” that “is not about the law; this is about our <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2019/18-587_1bn2.pdf#page=32">choice to destroy lives</a>.”</p>
<p>Others <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/white-house-press-secretary-says-trump-will-now-use-dreamers-as-bargaining-chip-for-border-wall-fbb7f8d9e18f/">said</a> the administration was using DACA as a bargaining chip for other legislative goals, including <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/19/us/politics/trump-proposal-daca-wall.html">funding for the border wall</a>.</p>
<p>It all came down to whether the justices believed that the administration was doing this for partisan and policy reasons. And if so, was the White House legally bound to be honest in explaining why?</p>
<p>Justice Elena Kagan, who joined Justice Roberts in the majority decision along with the three other liberal justices, asked the key question back in November’s arguments: <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2019/18-587_1bn2.pdf#page=82">“Well, what would an adequate explanation look like?”</a></p>
<p>Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested the answer should be, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2019/18-587_1bn2.pdf#page=90">“We don’t like DACA and we’re taking responsibility for that, instead of trying to put the blame on the law</a>.”</p>
<h2>And nothing but?</h2>
<p>Ahead of the June 18 ruling, Justice Stephen Breyer asked an important question for the legacy of the ruling: <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2019/18-587_1bn2.pdf#page=83">“What’s the point?”</a> In other words, why make the administration say what everyone already knows – that it opposes DACA and is not moved by the human cost of deportation?</p>
<p>The answer came from Michael Mongan, advocate for the University of California, where <a href="https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/uc-takes-daca-fight-supreme-court">around 1,700 Dreamers study</a>. He argued in November that the reason to reject the Trump administation’s actions is that “they have not made a decision that actually takes ownership of a discretionary choice to end this policy … so the public could <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2019/18-587_1bn2.pdf#page=87">hold them accountable for the choice they’ve made</a>.”</p>
<p>The point is democratic accountability. If the executive branch is forced to make full and honest admissions, then voters can judge elected officials accurately.</p>
<p>In regard to the effects on DACA recipients, Chief Justice Roberts ruled that the administration “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-587_5ifl.pdf#page=31">should have considered these matters but did not</a>.”</p>
<h2>…so help us all!</h2>
<p>The DACA ruling was anticipated by an earlier precedent established by Chief Justice Roberts.</p>
<p>In 2019, when the Supreme Court <a href="https://theconversation.com/roberts-rules-the-2-most-important-supreme-court-decisions-this-year-were-about-fair-elections-and-the-chief-justice-119708">rejected the Trump administration’s effort</a> to put a citizenship question on the 2020 census, Roberts argued that if the executive branch advances dishonest arguments, the court would not accept them. The phrases Roberts used included “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-966_bq7c.pdf#page=31">pretext</a>,” “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-966_bq7c.pdf#page=33">contrived</a>” and “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-966_bq7c.pdf#page=32">a story that does not match the explanation</a>.” In common language, that means lying.</p>
<p>Roberts’ assertion in the census case met with deep disdain from Justice Clarence Thomas, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-966_bq7c.pdf#page=35">who wrote</a>: “For the first time ever, the court invalidates an agency action solely because it questions the sincerity of the agency’s otherwise adequate rationale.”</p>
<p>In his dissent to the DACA ruling, Thomas describes the decision as “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-587_5ifl.pdf#page=40">mystifying</a>.” In deciding to rule on, in Roberts’ words, “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-587_5ifl.pdf#page=13">whether the agency action was adequately explained</a>,” Thomas argues that the decision “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-587_5ifl.pdf#page=41">has given the green light for future political battles to be fought in this Court rather than where they rightfully belong – the political branches</a>.” </p>
<p>The point has been even more bluntly made by Justice Samuel Alito. Having <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-966_bq7c.pdf#page=75">said in the census case</a> that the federal judiciary had “no authority to stick its nose into” whether reasons given by the administration were the “only reasons,” he followed the DACA ruling with a one-page dissent stating simply, “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-587_5ifl.pdf#page=66">our constitutional system is not supposed to work that way</a>.”</p>
<p>With this decision, Justice Roberts has extended his ruling on the census, demanding executive candor regarding DACA as well. The long-term legacy of this case may be that the Supreme Court led by John Roberts has now become an arbiter of public honesty.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-daca-decision-isnt-just-about-dreamers-its-about-whether-the-white-house-has-to-tell-the-truth-129214">an article originally published</a> on Jan. 15.</em></p>
<p>[ <em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141099/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Morgan Marietta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In a 5-to-4 decision, SCOTUS delivered a major blow to Trump and opened the doors to the court being an arbiter of public honestyMorgan Marietta, Associate Professor of Political Science, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1274242019-11-21T05:22:50Z2019-11-21T05:22:50ZDemocrats debate health care, farmers and minimum wage: 4 essential reads – and a chart<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302836/original/file-20191121-515-q2aj72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ten Democratic presidential candidates took the stage in Atlanta on Nov. 20.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Election-2020-Debate/45750a8ae79d4098ad73bb4aa11fe13f/24/0">AP Photo/John Bazemore</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The top candidates vying to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2020 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/us/politics/democratic-debate-live.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage">took the stage</a> in Atlanta for their fifth televised debate on Nov. 20.</p>
<p>With 10 participants and only two hours to discuss dozens of complicated issues, viewers may have had a hard time keeping up as candidates <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/31/democratic-debate-results-takeaways-1441786">waded into the weeds</a> of their pet policy proposals.</p>
<p>Fortunately, our scholars – who have written <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/2020-us-presidential-election-38597">dozens of articles on the key issues</a> of the 2020 Democratic primary campaign – have you covered. </p>
<p>Here are four economic issues that came up in the Nov. 20 debate, along with four stories from our archive that provide some context to help you evaluate what the candidates said.</p>
<h2>1. Medicare for … whom?</h2>
<p>Voters, especially Democrats, say health care <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/244367/top-issues-voters-healthcare-economy-immigration.aspx">is the top issue heading into 2020</a>. So it’s hardly a surprise that the topic <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/15/20914415/democratic-debates-health-care-issues">has dominated</a> the first four debates and was a hot topic in Atlanta. </p>
<p>Several candidates debated “Medicare for all” and how far to go. Mayor Pete Buttigieg pushed his “Medicare for all who want it” proposal, which would offer a government plan while letting people keep their private insurance. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders argued the best way forward is to make everyone sign up for a government-run single-payer system – the main difference between them being how soon to make it happen. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/01/politics/elizabeth-warren-medicare-for-all-financing-plan/index.html">sticking point</a> has been the high price tag. Gerald Friedman, an economist at University of Massachusetts Amherst, has crunched the numbers on several different versions of a single-payer health care system and estimates a full-scale plan could cost as much as US$40 trillion over a decade. </p>
<p>But there’s an easier and cheaper way to get to Medicare for all, he writes: Simply <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-us-could-afford-medicare-for-all-124462">expand the existing Medicare program to everyone</a>. </p>
<p>Medicare’s “limited scope, skimpy benefits and cost-sharing keep costs low,” he writes, yet “it provides meaningful protection against the potentially crippling cost of accident or illness.” </p>
<h2>2. Trade and farmers</h2>
<p>U.S. trade policy has been an important economic topic ever since Trump launched his trade war against China nearly two years ago. It’s also among the <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/real_clear_opinion_research/new_poll_shows_health_care_is_voters_top_concern.html">top concerns on voters’ minds</a>.</p>
<p>Soybean farmers in particular <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-costs-factbox/factbox-from-phone-makers-to-farmers-the-toll-of-trumps-trade-wars-idUSKCN1VE00B">have suffered</a> as a result of the trade war. MSNBC moderator Rachel Maddow asked Buttigieg if he’d continue the billions of dollars in farm subsidies the Trump administration has given to soybean and other farmers to offset the pain. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302839/original/file-20191121-496-1micbv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302839/original/file-20191121-496-1micbv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302839/original/file-20191121-496-1micbv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302839/original/file-20191121-496-1micbv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302839/original/file-20191121-496-1micbv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302839/original/file-20191121-496-1micbv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302839/original/file-20191121-496-1micbv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302839/original/file-20191121-496-1micbv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Trump administration has paid billions in aid to farmers struggling under the financial strain of his trade dispute with China.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trade-War-Farm-Aid/65b511e75f934e07a33202155d732ae7/22/0">AP Photo/Dylan Lovan</a></span>
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<p>The South Bend, Indiana, mayor said he would support farmers but emphasized that the subsidies don’t make up for the costs of the trade war. “I don’t think this president cares one bit about these farmers,” he said. </p>
<p>Ian Sheldon, a professor of agricultural economics who studies international commodity markets at The Ohio State University, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-soybeans-became-chinas-most-powerful-weapon-in-trumps-trade-war-118088">describes how soybeans became China’s biggest weapon</a> in the trade war. </p>
<p>“The importance of China as a market for soybeans has been driven by an explosion in demand for meat as consumers switch from a diet dominated by rice to one where pork, poultry and beef play an important part,” he explains.</p>
<h2>3. Lifting the minimum wage</h2>
<p>Senators Cory Booker and Sanders brought up the need to raise the minimum wage. Critics of doing so argue it hurts small businesses. </p>
<p>But since New York City lifted the minimum wage to $15 per hour nearly a year ago, the restaurant industry in New York City has continued to thrive.</p>
<p>Nicole Hallett, an associate professor of law at the University at Buffalo SUNY who studies the minimum wage, <a href="https://theconversation.com/raising-the-minimum-wage-in-restaurants-could-be-a-win-for-everyone-125036">explains why</a>. </p>
<p>“A pay increase for low-wage workers doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game,” she writes. “In fact, the evidence suggests that everyone can win.”</p>
<h2>4. Life without paid family leave</h2>
<p>Many of the candidates support requiring companies to offer their employees paid family leave. </p>
<p>When the issue came up at the debate, entrepreneur Andrew Yang noted that the U.S. is <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/03/switzerland-ranked-as-best-country-for-womens-rights-oecd/">one of only two countries</a> that doesn’t mandate paid family leave. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris agreed on the need for a policy but disagreed over how many months to offer – three versus six. </p>
<p>Darby Saxbe, a psychologist at the University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, <a href="https://theconversation.com/paid-family-leave-is-an-investment-in-public-health-not-a-handout-108323">shows just how little parental leave</a> most Americans currently have and explains the significant stress it causes families. </p>
<p>“Like many windows of dynamic developmental change, the transition to parenthood is a time of transformation that can spur growth – but also brings vulnerability,” she writes. </p>
<h2>Chart: Equal pay for women</h2>
<p>Several of the candidates cited statistics about how much women make compared with men. </p>
<p>Michele Gilman of the University of Baltimore <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-women-still-earn-a-lot-less-than-men-109128">ran the numbers for us</a>.</p>
<p><iframe id="h4yVt" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/h4yVt/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives and an updated version of an article <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-economists-guide-to-watching-the-atlanta-2020-presidential-debate-3-essential-reads-127417">originally published on Nov. 20</a>.</em></p>
<p>[ <em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127424/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Learn more about the economic issues that were debated by the Democratic presidential candidates in Atlanta on Nov. 20.Bryan Keogh, Managing EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1268922019-11-12T19:20:44Z2019-11-12T19:20:44ZDACA argued at the Supreme Court: 6 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301362/original/file-20191112-178525-1r8ckri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People rally outside the Supreme Court as oral arguments are heard in the DACA case on Nov. 12.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Supreme-Court-Immigration/880613bc44b545ceb3bde29df9204638/7/0">AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The future remains uncertain for a group of young people who were brought from other countries to the U.S. as children without legal authorization.</p>
<p>Currently, these young people are protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. This Obama-era program shields <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/6/16431524/daca-how-many">around 700,000 to 800,000 people</a> from deportation. On Nov. 12, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/us/supreme-court-dreamers.html">the Supreme Court heard arguments</a> on the Trump administration’s decision to end the program. </p>
<p>The hearing involves three separate cases challenging the Trump administration, brought by <a href="https://www.nilc.org/2019/06/28/scotus-grants-cert-in-daca-cases/">six New York DACA recipients and the advocacy organization Make the Road New York</a>, <a href="https://www.naacp.org/latest/federal-court-naacp-case-restores-daca/">the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People</a> and <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/11/12/trump-threatens-daca-youth-why-we-sued-janet-napolitano-column/2562708001/">the University of California</a>.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump first <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/us/politics/trump-daca-dreamers-immigration.html">announced he would</a> rescind DACA in 2017. However, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-ruling/second-u-s-judge-blocks-trump-administration-from-ending-daca-program-idUSKCN1FX2TJ">lower court</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/daca-injunction-what-a-federal-judges-ruling-means-for-dreamers/2018/01/10/ecb5d492-f60c-11e7-a9e3-ab18ce41436a_story.html">rulings</a> have blocked the administration from ending the program.</p>
<p>Here is a roundup of archival stories to help you follow along.</p>
<h2>1. DACA’s terms and conditions</h2>
<p>DACA came with a long list of terms and conditions. For example, to apply you had to be a certain age and meet certain educational requirements.</p>
<p>Immigration scholar <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kevin-johnson-322147">Kevin Johnson</a> of the University of California, Davis, points out DACA offered protection for only about 1.8 million of the estimated 3.6 million people who were brought to the U.S. as children. </p>
<p>Of those 1.8 million who were eligible, only about 800,000 <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-path-to-citizenship-for-1-8-million-will-leave-out-nearly-half-of-all-dreamers-90899">actually applied and received protection through DACA</a>.</p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-230" class="tc-infographic" height="575px" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/230/0383290ac53a9bb85bf4290bcbe95349d1676be3/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>2. DACA doesn’t cover unaccompanied minors</h2>
<p>It’s important to point out that DACA also does not apply to “unaccompanied minors.” You may have heard the term used especially in 2014, when unprecedented numbers of children traveling alone were arriving at the U.S. border with Mexico. Generally, these case are handled under a different set of laws and policies.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/stephanie-l-canizales-133281">Stephanie Canizales</a>, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Southern California, Dornsife, has spent time doing in-depth interviews and observational research on this group of migrants, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-unaccompanied-youth-become-exploited-workers-in-the-us-73738">who face a separate set of issues around labor exploitation</a>.</p>
<p>Canizales writes, “Undocumented working youth migrate to Los Angeles in hopes of working to support their families who remain in their home countries. … Much like with their adult coworkers, economic necessity and fear of removal from the workplace and the country keep undocumented migrant youth workers quiet in cases of exploitation, and docile and efficient on the job.”</p>
<h2>3. DACA improves mental health</h2>
<p>There is research that shows that DACA <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-daca-affected-the-mental-health-of-undocumented-young-adults-83341">has improved the mental health of those who received it</a>. </p>
<p>Scholars <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/elizabeth-aranda-334454">Elizabeth Aranda</a> of the University of South Florida and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/elizabeth-vaquera-405048">Elizabeth Vaquera</a> of George Washington University explain that being an undocumented immigrant in the U.S. carries severe mental health consequences. These include problems such as chronic worry, sadness, isolation and even suicidal thoughts.</p>
<p>Although DACA may offer only temporary protection, the relief recipients felt was significant. Aranda and Vaquera write, “These youth shared with us that they were more motivated and happy after Obama’s executive order. As Kate, one of our participants, told us, DACA ‘has gone a long way to give me some sense of security and stability that I haven’t had in a very long time.’”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301363/original/file-20191112-178520-26v34k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301363/original/file-20191112-178520-26v34k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301363/original/file-20191112-178520-26v34k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301363/original/file-20191112-178520-26v34k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301363/original/file-20191112-178520-26v34k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301363/original/file-20191112-178520-26v34k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301363/original/file-20191112-178520-26v34k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301363/original/file-20191112-178520-26v34k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A legal immigrant reads a guide of the conditions needed to apply for DACA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump-Immigration-Legal-Challenge/303a3b1bfcee41c68b62dbb1b844416f/11/0">AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File</a></span>
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<h2>4. Dreamers would boost US economy</h2>
<p>DACA critics have suggested that undocumented immigrants negatively impact the U.S. economy because they steal jobs from native-born people. In fact, there is growing evidence that shows how incorporating undocumented immigrants into the workforce actually boosts economic growth. </p>
<p>For example, take City University of New York sociologist <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/amy-hsin-437057">Amy Hsin</a>’s study that shows <a href="https://theconversation.com/daca-isnt-just-about-social-justice-legalizing-dreamers-makes-economic-sense-too-90603">what would have happened if the DREAM Act had passed</a> in 2017.</p>
<p>She found that it would have had no significant effect on the wages of U.S.-born workers. It would have created more economic opportunities by encouraging legalized immigrants to make education gains. Hsin wrote, “Overall, we estimate that the increases in productivity under the DREAM Act would raise the United States GDP by US$15.2 billion and significantly increase tax revenue.”</p>
<p>An updated version of the DREAM Act, called the American Dream and Promise Act,<a href="https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/dream-act-daca-and-other-policies-designed-protect-dreamers">passed the House on June 4</a>, but has <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6">yet to be voted on by the Senate</a>.</p>
<h2>5. The moral argument for Dreamers</h2>
<p>Arguably, at the core of the effort to protect Dreamers is a belief that the U.S. has a tradition of embracing those who arrive at its shores seeking a better life. </p>
<p>However, a quick scan of history would reveal that the U.S. has not in fact always been so welcoming. As <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/carrie-tirado-bramen-438943">Carrie Tirado Bramen</a> of the University at Buffalo explains, many writers have described U.S. history as an “ongoing duel between generosity and greed.”</p>
<p>Bramen writes that <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-daca-debate-which-version-of-america-nice-or-nasty-will-prevail-90731">DACA gets at the core of American identity</a>: “At stake is not only the fate of the Dreamers, but also how the country and the rest of the world understands the idea of America.”</p>
<h2>6. What Americans think about immigration</h2>
<p>What do Americans make of the debate over DACA?</p>
<p>According to recent polls, “Americans have never felt warmer toward immigrants, nor have they ever been more supportive of immigration,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/americans-support-for-immigration-is-at-record-highs-but-the-government-is-out-of-sync-with-their-views-121215">writes Mariano Sana, a sociologist at Vanderbilt University</a>.</p>
<p>He finds that somewhere between <a href="https://immigrationforum.org/article/american-attitudes-on-immigration-steady-but-showing-more-partisan-divides/">62%</a> and <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/246455/solid-majority-opposes-new-construction-border-wall.aspx">81%</a> of Americans consistently support offering undocumented immigrants legalization with a path to citizenship. </p>
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<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/trying-to-keep-up-with-the-dreamers-debate-here-are-6-essential-reads-91787">an article originally published on Feb. 14, 2018</a>, authored by Danielle Douez.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126892/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
On Nov. 12, the Supreme Court heard arguments on the Trump administration’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.Aviva Rutkin, Data EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1084002018-12-20T11:34:01Z2018-12-20T11:34:01ZMore DREAMs come true in California: How tuition waivers opened doors for undocumented students<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251643/original/file-20181219-45400-rbx0ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Undocumented students took advantage of tuition benefits they called for through the 2013 California DREAM Act.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.sccollege.edu/StudentServices/AB540/PublishingImages/dreamact3.jpg">Santiago Canyon College</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>California decided to crack open the door to higher education a little more for undocumented students through the <a href="https://www.csac.ca.gov/california-dream-act">California DREAM Act</a>.</p>
<p>In a new <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/0013189X18800047">study of the impact of this 2013 policy</a>, education researcher Samantha Astudillo and I discovered that it helped put undocumented students on equal footing with students who are U.S. citizens in terms of how many credits they take each semester.</p>
<p>The policy – which takes its name from students known as “Dreamers” – offers the students state grant aid and community college fee waivers. This financial aid is valued at <a href="http://californiacommunitycolleges.cccco.edu/Portals/0/Reports/2016-CCCCO-BOG-FeeWaiver-Report-final.pdf">US$550</a> a semester for community college students. Once California made the aid available to low-income undocumented students attending community college, those students completed about two more college credits in the first semester of enrollment than prior groups. That meant undocumented students completed an average of 7.5 credits, on par with U.S. citizen students who receive aid.</p>
<p>Our findings carry important implications for the estimated <a href="https://edtrust.org/the-equity-line/let-young-dreamers-continue-dream/">65,000</a> undocumented students who graduate from U.S. high schools each year. They also are relevant to states and advocates who are interested in expanding educational opportunity for members of this particular group, who often find themselves in legal limbo and with <a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-how-undocumented-students-are-able-to-enroll-at-american-universities-69269">limited options</a>.</p>
<h2>Why the findings matter</h2>
<p>The significance of our findings might vary, of course, based on one’s political views or vantage point.</p>
<p>For instance, this finding could be important from an economic standpoint if you think it’s a good investment for undocumented students to go to college to get the kinds of credentials that enable them to earn a living and contribute to the workforce. For those who see <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/12/18/tucker-carlsons-immigration-comments-lead-companies-pull-ads/2356151002/">immigrants as undesirables</a>, our study offers a counter-narrative – that many are just aspiring college students.</p>
<p>It should be noted that in-state resident tuition benefits for undocumented students have already lowered the cost of college for undocumented students in <a href="https://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/2809">17 states</a>. These states include California and Texas, which have the <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/interactives/unauthorized-immigrants/">largest</a> undocumented populations. Still, paying in-state tuition remains difficult for undocumented students from lower-income families. That is why the tuition and fee waivers may be needed to further expand opportunity.</p>
<h2>A closer look</h2>
<p>Our study examined the transcripts of more than 26,000 students entering a set of California community colleges between 2011 and 2014. We could identify students who were likely undocumented because the colleges we studied collected resident status information to determine financial aid awards. About 10 percent of the students in the data fell into this category. We base this on the fact that the students checked the “other visa” box instead of other options, such as U.S. citizen, permanent resident or international student visa, to indicate their status. Also, these students appeared in the local high school data.</p>
<p>We determined the impact of the California DREAM Act by comparing the outcomes of undocumented students to the outcomes of U.S. citizen students before and after the policy. Citizen students served as a “control” group since the policy change didn’t affect them.</p>
<p>Before the California DREAM Act, some undocumented students with higher GPAs than U.S. citizen students were not enrolling in college. The promise of aid made these high-achieving undocumented students more likely to enroll.</p>
<p>The promise of aid also apparently led undocumented high school students to improve their GPAs between 11th and 12th grade. For instance, Hispanic U.S. citizen students increased their GPA by 0.11 points between 11th to 12th grades. This figure held steady before and after the policy. But for undocumented Hispanic students, the average change grew from 0.08 before the policy to 0.11 points afterwards. This suggests that undocumented students might have started to see college as more of a possibility and worked hard in class as a result.</p>
<h2>The college try</h2>
<p>I believe our findings suggest that states with in-state resident tuition policies should replicate the California DREAM Act.</p>
<p>If such a proposed policy draws opposition from critics who think state resources should not be given to undocumented immigrants, then perhaps free community college programs, or <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-college-promise-programs-deliver-87850">“promise” programs,“</a> for local high school graduates may be a way to support all low-income students, <a href="https://edtrust.org/resource/can-undocumented-students-access-free-college-programs/">provided they are accessible</a> to undocumented students.</p>
<p>At the very least, the results of this study show that undocumented students have dreams of completing college. Decreasing college costs through targeted financial aid policy such as the California DREAM Act can help to make more of those dreams a reality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108400/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Federick J. Ngo has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the Asian and Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund for other research.</span></em></p>When researchers took a close look at transcripts for thousands of California community college students, they discovered an encouraging trend in enrollment for undocumented students.Federick J. Ngo, Assistant Professor of Higher Education, University of Nevada, Las VegasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1002342018-07-23T17:28:01Z2018-07-23T17:28:01ZHow the Mormon church’s past shapes its position on immigration today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228615/original/file-20180720-142411-2wqhfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brigham Young and other men are shown preparing women in dresses for war.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Brigham_Young_Mustering_his_Forces.jpg">Harper's Weekly, volume v. 1, November 28, 1857, p. 768. Scan from BX8609.A1a#466, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee library, Brigham Young University.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On July 24, 1847, Brigham Young and 146 other Mormon pioneers <a href="https://history.lds.org/overlandtravel/companies/1/brigham-young-pioneer-company">made their way</a> into the Salt Lake Valley. They had left the United States and found themselves in Mexican territory. </p>
<p>At the time, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/index_flash.html">the Mexican-American War was raging</a>, and within a year Mexico would cede the Salt Lake Valley to the United States. But that was not in the Mormons’ plans. They were trying to leave the United States <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=mUSUJb-mhFsC&lpg=PP1&dq=brigham%20young%20leave%20united%20states&pg=PA123#v=onepage&q=%22prettiest%20enterprise%22&f=false">to escape violence and persecution</a>. </p>
<p>But once they were in the new territory, they settled in the Valley without the approval of the Mexican government or the indigenous <a href="https://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/american_indians/nativeamericansinutah.html">people who already lived</a> in the arid land near the Great Salt Lake. The Mormon history in Utah reveals them to be both persecuted migrants and colonizers.</p>
<p>In Utah, July 24 is celebrated as <a href="https://onlinelibrary.utah.gov/research/utah_symbols/holiday.html">Pioneer Day</a>. From <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=KT0k4-8AAAAJ&hl=en">my perspective as a scholar</a> of Mormon history, revisiting the story of the Mormon settlement of the Salt Lake Valley has profound implication for the ways the leadership of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today thinks about issues of immigration.</p>
<h2>The history of Mormon immigration</h2>
<p>Before they made their way to Salt Lake City, the Mormons lived in New York, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois. The church encouraged Mormon converts to gather together, and by the 1840s, some <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=MPMrsnxfIVEC&lpg=PA119&dq=british%20migrants%20to%20nauvoo%2025&pg=PA119#v=onepage&q=british%20migrants%20to%20nauvoo%2025&f=false">25 percent</a> of the population of the Mormon settlement in Illinois were British converts and immigrants.</p>
<p>The Mormons’ neighbors were suspicious of them for a number of reasons. They were perceived as outsiders because many were immigrants, but they were also <a href="http://www.pbs.org/mormons/themes/problem.html">clannish</a>. In elections, the Mormons voted as a bloc. They tended to keep their trade and economic activity among themselves. As their numbers swelled into the hundreds and thousands, their neighbors feared their influence. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228617/original/file-20180720-142417-1qfgtpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228617/original/file-20180720-142417-1qfgtpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228617/original/file-20180720-142417-1qfgtpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228617/original/file-20180720-142417-1qfgtpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228617/original/file-20180720-142417-1qfgtpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228617/original/file-20180720-142417-1qfgtpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228617/original/file-20180720-142417-1qfgtpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An 1842 watercolor portrait of Joseph Smith by Sutcliffe Maudsley.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similarly, their religious practices attracted suspicion. In the 1840s, the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, began practicing polygamy, and though he tried to keep it secret, rumor quickly spread. As one Missouri writer <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Gazetteer_of_the_State_of_Missouri.html?id=6H8UAAAAYAAJ">described</a> them in 1837, they were a “mass of human corruption, [a] tribe of locusts, that still threatens to scorch and wither the herbage of a fair and goodly portion of Missouri by the swarm of emigrants.”</p>
<p>Through the 1830s and 1840s, the Mormons fled from one state to the next. In 1838, the governor of Missouri issued what historians often call the “<a href="http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Extermination_Order">extermination order,”</a> directing the state militia to drive Mormons out. </p>
<p>For several months Missourian forces and an ad hoc Mormon militia fought across several counties in the western portion of the state. By 1839, the Mormons had settled in Nauvoo, Illinois, hoping to escape such tensions. </p>
<p>But in June 1844, Joseph Smith was assassinated by a mob in Carthage, Illinois. His successor Brigham Young determined that the United States was not safe for the Mormons. He selected the Salt Lake Valley as the place for their settlement because, as Young <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=GrPpCAAAQBAJ&lpg=PT219&dq=%E2%80%9Ca%20place%20on%20this%20earth%20that%20nobody%20else%20wants%E2%80%9D&pg=PT219#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9Ca%20place%20on%20this%20earth%20that%20nobody%20else%20wants%E2%80%9D&f=false">said</a>, it was “a place on this earth that nobody else wants.” </p>
<h2>Mormonism as an immigrant religion</h2>
<p>The Mormon leadership today remembers that they are historically a religion of immigrants. Indeed, the church in the United States still is. Mormonism is growing faster in Latin America than in any other region of the world, and nearly <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/mormon/">10 percent of the church’s membership</a> in the United States is Latino or Latina. </p>
<p>These reasons lie behind the church’s consistent support for a humane immigration policy. The <a href="https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/daca-statement-january-2018">church officially supports</a> increasing opportunities for the “Dreamers,” people brought to the United States as children. It has offered <a href="https://www.apnews.com/7de6b7f4c6934568bac300018caad5c9">criticism of the punitive practices</a> the Trump administration has implemented toward migrant families.</p>
<p>Its leadership helped to draft the <a href="https://the-utah-compact.com/">“Utah Compact</a>,” a statement of principles that urges a “humane approach” to immigration that emphasizes the importance of being “a place that welcomes people of goodwill.” After all, as church leaders <a href="https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/daca-statement-january-2018">stated in an official statement</a>, “Most of our early Church members emigrated from foreign lands to live, work and worship.”</p>
<p>At the same time, it is also true that the Trump administration’s immigration policies enjoy about <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2018/06/24/a-slight-majority-of-utahns-say-president-trump-is-doing-a-good-job-but-approval-dips-on-his-immigration-policy/">50 percent approval</a> in Utah, a state that has about <a href="https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/facts-and-statistics/country/united-states/state/utah">two million Mormons</a>.</p>
<p>Indeed, recently <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2018/06/18/utah-governor-opposes-trumps-nominee-from-the-state-to-oversee-us-refugee-program/">President Trump nominated</a> Ronald Mortensen to oversee the State Department’s refugee program. Mortensen, a Mormon and former <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/who-ronald-mortensen-trump-nominates-immigration-hardliner-post-dealing-944180">officer in the U.S. foreign service,</a> has blasted the Utah Compact and other of the church’s statements on immigration for being too favorable to immigrants. </p>
<p><a href="https://cis.org/Mormon-Church-and-Illegal-Immigration">Mortensen attacked</a> the church for being “biased in favor of illegal immigrants,” and said its positions “weaken the rule of law.”</p>
<h2>The disputed legacy of Mormon immigration</h2>
<p>Mortensen’s stand reveals the divided mind of the church. Though its leadership remembers Brigham Young’s entrance into the Salt Lake Valley as a reason for sympathy to immigrants today, Mortensen’s hard line brings to mind a different aspect of Mormon history. </p>
<p>Despite Brigham Young’s claim that nobody else wanted the valley, it was indeed <a href="https://heritage.utah.gov/history/uhg-history-american-indians-ch-5">populated by thousands of Native Americans</a> when the Mormons arrived. Mormon-Native interaction was uneasy, characterized by alternating cooperation and spurts of violence. </p>
<p>Though Brigham Young sometimes sought to work peacefully with Native tribes, he was also willing to enforce his will upon them with <a href="http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/672">violence</a>. Mormon settlers gradually displaced Native Americans from the land and resources they depended upon to support themselves.</p>
<p>In consequence, wars between the Mormon settlers and Native peoples <a href="https://heritage.utah.gov/history/uhg-history-american-indians-ch-5">broke out in the 1850s and 1860s</a>. As with most other areas in the United States, Native people were eventually confined to reservations. </p>
<p>Aspects of this legacy persist. Recently, for instance, Mormon elected officials have supported the Trump administration’s decision to reduce the size of the Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah. The monument was created by President Barack Obama in 2016. It is centered on a pair of large buttes called the “<a href="https://www.fs.fed.us/visit/bears-ears-national-monument">Bears Ears,”</a> which are held as sacred or significant by a number of Native American groups. Many Native leaders therefore <a href="http://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/367227-utah-bill-tramples-on-tribal-sovereignty-at-bears-ears">protested</a> the Trump administration’s plan and Utah leaders’ support for it. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228619/original/file-20180720-142414-xylajl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228619/original/file-20180720-142414-xylajl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228619/original/file-20180720-142414-xylajl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228619/original/file-20180720-142414-xylajl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228619/original/file-20180720-142414-xylajl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228619/original/file-20180720-142414-xylajl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228619/original/file-20180720-142414-xylajl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A replica of the log house in Palmyra, New York, where church founder Joseph Smith lived when he encountered his first vision that led to the formation of the Mormons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Democrat and Chronicle, Burr Lewis</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The conflicts over Bears Ears on the one hand and recent immigration policy on the other show that the church’s own experience as a migrating people, but also as a colonizing people, oppressed and oppressor in turn, continues to shape the church’s position on immigration today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100234/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Bowman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On July 24, 1847, Mormon leader Brigham Young and 146 followers entered Salt Lake City to escape persecution. This history has implications today.Matthew Bowman, Associate Professor of History, Henderson State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/986122018-06-19T21:49:44Z2018-06-19T21:49:44ZTrump’s act of state terrorism against children<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223924/original/file-20180619-126559-eg7t33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children listen to speakers during an immigration family separation protest in Phoenix, Arizona.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>State terrorism comes in many forms, but one of its most cruel and revolting expressions is when it is aimed at children. </p>
<p>Even though U.S. President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/us/politics/trump-immigration-children-executive-order.html">backed down in the face of a scathing political and public outcry</a> and ended his administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents, make no mistake: His actions were and remain a form of terrorism. </p>
<p>That he was defiant until his back was against the wall points not only to a society that has lost its moral compass, but has also descended into such darkness that it demands both the loudest forms of moral outrage and a collective resistance aimed at eliminating the narratives, power relations and values that support it.</p>
<p>State violence against children has a <a href="https://www.juancole.com/2018/06/dictators-children-sessions.html">long, dark history among authoritarian regimes.</a> </p>
<p>Josef Stalin’s police took children from the parents he labelled as “enemies of the people.” Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco and Augusto Pinochet all separated children from their families on a large scale as a way to punish political dissidents and those parents considered disposable. </p>
<p>Now we can add Trump to the list of the depraved.</p>
<p>Amnesty International called Trump’s decision to separate children from their parents and warehouse them in cages and tents for months as a cruel policy that amounts to <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/06/usa-family-separation-torture">“nothing short of torture.”</a> </p>
<p>Many of the parents whose children were taken away from them entered the country legally, unwittingly exposing what resembles a state-sanctioned policy of racial cleansing. <a href="https://apnews.com/afc80e51b562462c89907b49ae624e79">Allegations of abuse</a> against the children while detained are emerging. And federal U.S. officials have said despite Trump’s about-face, children who have already been separated from their parents — more than 2,000 of them — will not be reunited with them.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223928/original/file-20180619-126531-6bgzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223928/original/file-20180619-126531-6bgzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223928/original/file-20180619-126531-6bgzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223928/original/file-20180619-126531-6bgzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223928/original/file-20180619-126531-6bgzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223928/original/file-20180619-126531-6bgzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223928/original/file-20180619-126531-6bgzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Immigrant children are shown outside a former Job Corps site that now houses them on June 18, 2018, in Homestead, Fla.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In any democratic society, the primary index through which a society registers its own meaning, vision and politics is measured by how it treats its children, and its commitment to the ideal that a civilized society is one that does everything it can to make the future and the world a better place for youth.</p>
<h2>Abuse and terror</h2>
<p>By this measure, the Trump administration has done more than fail in its commitment to children. It has abused, terrorized and scarred them. What’s more, this policy was ludicrously initiated and legitimized by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a notorious anti-immigrant advocate, with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/06/14/jeff-sessions-points-to-the-bible-in-defense-of-separating-immigrant-families/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.13fc93211747">a Bible verse that was used historically by racists to justify slavery.</a></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-bibles-message-on-separating-immigrant-children-from-parents-is-a-lot-different-from-what-jeff-sessions-thinks-98419">The Bible's message on separating immigrant children from parents is a lot different from what Jeff Sessions thinks</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In the name of religion and without irony, Sessions put into play a policy that has been a hallmark of authoritarian regimes.</p>
<p>At the same time, Trump justified the policy <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/15/politics/family-separation-democrats-trump/index.html">with the notorious lie that the Democrats have to change the law</a> for the separations to stop, when in actuality the separations are the result of a policy inaugurated by Sessions under Trump’s direction. </p>
<p>Trump wrote on Twitter that the Democrats are breaking up families.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1008709364939677697"}"></div></p>
<p>Yet according to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/politics/trump-immigration-separation-border.html">New York Times</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Mr. Trump was misrepresenting his own policy. There is no law that says children must be taken from their parents if they cross the border unlawfully, and previous administrations have made exceptions for those travelling with minor children when prosecuting immigrants for illegal entry. A “zero tolerance” policy created by the president in April and put into effect last month by the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, allows no such exceptions, Mr. Trump’s advisers say.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen actually elevated Trump’s lie to a horrendous act of wilful ignorance and complicity.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1008467414235992069"}"></div></p>
<p>This is an extension of the carceral state to the most vulnerable groups, putting into play a punitive policy that signals a descent into fascism, American-style.</p>
<p>The New Yorker’s Marsha Gessen got it right in comparing Trump’s policies towards children to those used by Vladimir Putin in Russia, both of which amounts to what she calls <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/taking-children-from-their-parents-is-a-form-of-state-terror">“an instrument of totalitarian terror.”</a> </p>
<p>Both countries arrest children in order to send a powerful message to their enemies. In this case, Trump’s message was designed to terrorize immigrants while shoring up his base, while Putin’s message is to squelch dissent in general among the larger populace. Referring to Putin’s reign of terror, she writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The spectacle of children being arrested sends a stronger message than any amount of police violence against adults could do. The threat that children might be removed from their families is likely to compel parents to keep their kids at home next time — and to stay home themselves.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Children screaming for their parents</h2>
<p>Within the last few weeks, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/us-immigration-children-audio-trump-border-patrol-separate-families-parents-detention-center-a8405501.html">heart-wrenching reports, images and audio</a> have emerged in which children, including infants, were forcibly separated from their parents, relocated to detention centres under-staffed by professional caretakers and housed in what some reporters have described as cages. </p>
<p>The consequences of Trump’s xenophobia are agonizingly clear in reports of migrant children screaming out for their parents, babies crying incessantly, infants housed with teenagers who don’t know how to change diapers and shattered and traumatized families.</p>
<p>The Trump administration <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/06/16/dhs-family-separation-mexico-border-lavandera-dnt-ac.cnn">has detained more than 2,000 children</a>. What’s more, the Trump administration <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/05/heres-how-the-government-managed-to-lose-track-of-1500-migrant-children/">has lost track of more than 1,500 children it first detained</a>.</p>
<p>In some cases, it deported parents without first uniting them with their detained children. What is equally horrifying and morally reprehensible is that previous studies, such as those <a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-Children-Anna-Freud/dp/1258161877/ref=as_at?creativeASIN=1258161877&linkCode=w50&tag=thedailybeast-autotag-20&imprToken=HKxJiMCzt0SDWl7bH6SvfA&slotNum=0&s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1528998860&sr=1-1&keywords=war+and+children+anna+freud">done by Anna Freud</a> and Dorothy Burlingham in the midst of the Second World War, indicated that children separated from their parents suffered both emotionally in the short run and were plagued by long-term separation anxieties.</p>
<p>It’s no wonder the American Academy of Pediatrics referred to the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their families as one of <a href="http://www.aappublications.org/news/2018/05/08/immigration050818">“sweeping cruelty.”</a></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223926/original/file-20180619-126540-14sf4xl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223926/original/file-20180619-126540-14sf4xl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223926/original/file-20180619-126540-14sf4xl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223926/original/file-20180619-126540-14sf4xl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223926/original/file-20180619-126540-14sf4xl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223926/original/file-20180619-126540-14sf4xl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223926/original/file-20180619-126540-14sf4xl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christopher Baker, 3, holds a sign that reads ‘Which baby deserves to sleep in a cage?’ as he attends a Poor People’s Campaign rally with his mother in Olympia, Wash., on June 18.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Trump has mobilized the fascist fervour that inevitably leads to prisons, detention centres and acts of domestic terrorism and state violence. Echoes of Nazi camps, Japanese internment prisons and the mass incarceration of Black and brown people, along with the destruction of their families, are now part of Trump’s legacy. </p>
<p>Shameless cruelty now marks the neoliberal fascism currently shaping American society. Trump <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/392886-dem-lawmaker-to-trump-stop-holding-kids-hostage-to-build-your">used children as hostages</a> in his attempt to implement his racist policy of building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and to please his white supremacist base. </p>
<p>Trump’s racism was on full display as he dug in to defend this white supremacist policy. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1009071403918864385"}"></div></p>
<p>He likened migrants to insects or disease-carrying rodents. In the past, he has also called undocumented <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-44148697/trump-immigrant-gangs-animals-not-people">immigrants “animals.”</a> This is a rhetoric with a dark past. The Nazis used similar analogies to describe Jews. This is the language of white supremacy and neo-fascism.</p>
<h2>Long history in the U.S.</h2>
<p>But let’s be clear. While the caging of children provoked a great deal of moral outrage across the ideological spectrum, the underlying logic has been largely ignored. </p>
<p>These tactics have a long history in the United States, and in recent years have been intensified with the collapse of the social contract, expanding inequality and the increasing criminalization of a range of behaviours associated with immigrants, young people and those populations considered most vulnerable.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fascisms-return-and-trumps-war-on-youth-88867">Fascism’s return and Trump’s war on youth</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The horrible treatment of immigrant parents and children by the Trump regime signals not only a hatred of human rights, justice and democracy, it lays bare a growing fascism in the United States in which politics and power are now being used to foster disposability. White supremacists, religious fundamentalists and political extremists are now in charge. </p>
<p>It’s all a logical extension of his plans <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-embassy-cables-warned-against-expelling-300000-immigrants-trump-officials-did-it-anyway/2018/05/08/065e5702-4fe5-11e8-b966-bfb0da2dad62_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b8fd2325dc34">to deport 300,000 immigrants and refugees,</a> including 200,000 Salvadorans and 86,000 Hondurans, by revoking their temporary protected status.</p>
<p>His cruelty is also evident in his <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/daca-trump-ends-news-latest-dreamers-act-immigration-renewal-immigrants-jeff-sessions-a7930926.html">rescinding of DACA for 800,000 so-called dreamers</a> and the <a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/immigrants-arent-bludgeons-far-right-use-against-democrats">removal of temporary protected status for 248,000 refugees</a>. </p>
<p>“Making America Great Again” and “America First” morphed into an unprecedented and unapologetic act of terrorism against immigrants. While the Obama administration also locked up the families of immigrants, it eventually scaled back the practice. </p>
<p>Under Trump, the savage practice <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/the-false-choice-between-jailing-children-and-separating-families/">accelerated and intensified</a>. His administration refused to consider more humane practices, such as community management of asylum-seekers. </p>
<p>It all functions as short hand for making America white again, and signals the unwillingness of the United States to break from its past and the ghosts of a lethal authoritarianism.</p>
<h2>Trump’s admiration of dictators</h2>
<p>It’s also more evidence of Trump’s <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-dreams-of-dictators-kim-jong-un-vladimir-putin/">love affair with the practices of other dictators</a> like Putin and now Kim Jong Un. And it signals a growing consolidation of power that is matched by the use of the repressive powers of the state to brutalize and threaten those who don’t fit into Trump’s white nationalist vision of the United States. </p>
<p>There is more at work here than the collapse of humanity and ethics under the Trump regime, there is also a process of dehumanization, racial cleansing and a convulsion of hatred toward those marked as disposable that echoes the darkest elements of fascism’s tenets.</p>
<p>The U.S. has now entered into a new era of racial hatred.</p>
<p>What has happened to the children and parents of immigrants does more than reek of cruelty, it points to a country in which matters of life and death have become unmoored from the principles of justice, compassion and democracy itself. </p>
<p>The horrors of fascism’s past have now travelled from the history books to modern times. The steep path to violence and cruelty can no longer be ignored. The time has come for the American public, politicians, educators, social movements and others to make clear that resistance to the emerging fascism in the United States is not an option —but a dire and urgent necessity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98612/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henry Giroux does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Donald Trump’s policy to separate children from their migrant parents lays bare his fascism. The time has come for Americans to resist this act of domestic terrorism.Henry Giroux, Chaired professor for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the Department of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/962542018-05-14T10:39:02Z2018-05-14T10:39:02ZWhat can we learn from the way graduates are decorating their caps?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218629/original/file-20180511-135202-1763x9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For many graduates, the future looms.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Massachusetts-Un-/aa7054bb6ce4da11af9f0014c2589dfb/25/0">AP Photo/Nancy Palmieri</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For college students across the country, commencement formally marks the transition from student to graduate. Per tradition, most schools feature speakers, give out awards, organize departmental dinners – and, of course, designate caps and gowns for students to wear when they receive their diploma.</p>
<p>But in the midst of the official pomp and circumstance, more and more graduates are adding a personal touch: They’ll decorate their graduation caps, also known as mortarboards.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.unlv.edu/people/sheila-bock">As a folklorist</a>, I pay close attention to the creative ways in which people choose to express themselves, which can tell us a lot about their beliefs, perspectives and aspirations. </p>
<p>When I attended my first University of Nevada, Las Vegas, commencement ceremony as a faculty member in 2011, it struck me how widespread the practice of decorating mortarboards had become. I wanted to learn more about how graduates were decorating their caps, what messages individuals wanted to convey and what these messages revealed, more broadly, about their college experiences. </p>
<p>So I began gathering data on the caps from photographs, surveys and interviews. <a href="https://cfs.osu.edu/archives/collections/gradcaptraditions">Much of it will eventually be digitally archived</a> by the Center for Folklore Studies at The Ohio State University. While the project is still ongoing, I’ve begun to identify a few key trends. </p>
<h2>Celebrating the accomplishment</h2>
<p>The practice of embellishing mortarboards is by no means new. In the 1960s, some graduates <a href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/87/e2/5f/87e25f34caadd7e826715bbfcf962fdb.jpg">would affix peace signs</a> to the top of their caps to protest the Vietnam War. When I completed my B.A. at University of California, Berkeley, in 2003, it was not uncommon to see decorated caps atop the heads of graduates.</p>
<p>Today, however, it seems to have become much more popular – which can probably be attributed, at least in part, to social media. As one person I interviewed put it, these caps are very “Instagrammable”: visually appealing, easy to photograph and sure to garner likes and comments. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/Bin9JmQDV3P/?tagged=gradcap","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>It makes sense that people would want to announce the accomplishment of graduation, and a photo of a personalized cap posted on social media is one way to do so. Sharing images of customized caps inspires others to do the same, and so the practice spreads. </p>
<p>Not surprisingly, many of the messages on decorated caps reaffirm the value of higher education and look optimistically to the future (“The Best is Yet to Come,” “Time to Spread Your Wings”). Others reflect school pride by including a university logo or mascot or identifying the graduate’s major or academic accomplishments. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218630/original/file-20180511-34006-2u0d44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218630/original/file-20180511-34006-2u0d44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218630/original/file-20180511-34006-2u0d44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218630/original/file-20180511-34006-2u0d44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218630/original/file-20180511-34006-2u0d44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218630/original/file-20180511-34006-2u0d44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218630/original/file-20180511-34006-2u0d44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218630/original/file-20180511-34006-2u0d44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One student is already looking ahead to med school.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sheila Bock</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Identity often influences what appears on the caps. You’ll see students reference their family, their veteran status, their hometown, religious beliefs and personal obstacles they’ve overcome.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218639/original/file-20180511-34009-10ayck9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218639/original/file-20180511-34009-10ayck9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218639/original/file-20180511-34009-10ayck9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218639/original/file-20180511-34009-10ayck9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218639/original/file-20180511-34009-10ayck9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218639/original/file-20180511-34009-10ayck9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218639/original/file-20180511-34009-10ayck9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A University of Massachusetts at Amherst student thanks her parents on her mortarboard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Crafts-Mortarboards/28d7caa8f5784c43b6ec79bb1fd9933e/22/0">AP Photo/Beth J. Harpaz</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Was it all worth it?</h2>
<p>Humor is also common. Sometimes it’s deployed to highlight the graduate’s personality or mock the formality of the occasion, with phrases like “Thanks Mom, Dad and Alcohol.” One cap had a 3-D model of a beer pong table – little cups included – affixed to it. </p>
<p>But graduates will also use humor to engage with more serious issues. One 2017 UNLV graduate’s cap, for example, featured a homemade version of the “<a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-have-3-dollars">I Have Three Dollars</a>” meme, which features Patrick Star from the animated children’s television show “SpongeBob SquarePants.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218631/original/file-20180511-34006-11bixkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218631/original/file-20180511-34006-11bixkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218631/original/file-20180511-34006-11bixkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218631/original/file-20180511-34006-11bixkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218631/original/file-20180511-34006-11bixkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218631/original/file-20180511-34006-11bixkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218631/original/file-20180511-34006-11bixkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The degree is taken care of – but what about the debt?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sheila Bock</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While making a humorous pop culture reference, the student was really calling attention to her experience of being a poor college student – and the fact that she’ll be carrying significant student loan debt well into the future. </p>
<p>It’s just one of many examples that show how graduates can creatively use the space on their mortarboards to resist the celebratory mood of commencement, questioning whether the time and money spent on a degree was really worth it (“My $35K Hat,” “Was the BS Worth the BS?”). </p>
<h2>Taking a stand</h2>
<p>Like the graduates protesting the Vietnam War in the 1960s, today’s graduates are also making political statements. Slogans like “Black Lives Matter” or images of raised, clenched fists will appear on caps. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218632/original/file-20180511-52177-4ssekx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218632/original/file-20180511-52177-4ssekx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218632/original/file-20180511-52177-4ssekx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218632/original/file-20180511-52177-4ssekx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218632/original/file-20180511-52177-4ssekx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218632/original/file-20180511-52177-4ssekx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218632/original/file-20180511-52177-4ssekx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The mortarboard has become a space to make political statements.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sheila Bock</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where I have collected the majority of my data so far, <a href="https://www.unlv.edu/about/highlights/unlv-most-diverse-campus-nation">is among the most diverse campuses in the nation</a>. In observing and tracking mortarboard cap decorations over the last couple of years, I have seen a marked increase in the number of caps that highlight the wearer’s racial and ethnic identities (“Black Girl Magic,” “This Xicana from El Chuco. ¡Si Pudo!”).</p>
<p>Then there are the mortarboards that point to the immigrant status of graduates or their families: “They Migrated So I Graduated,” “Product of Immigration,” “A Product of 2 Refugees Now with 2 Degrees.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218640/original/file-20180511-5968-1thg80k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218640/original/file-20180511-5968-1thg80k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218640/original/file-20180511-5968-1thg80k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218640/original/file-20180511-5968-1thg80k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218640/original/file-20180511-5968-1thg80k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218640/original/file-20180511-5968-1thg80k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218640/original/file-20180511-5968-1thg80k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">For the children of immigrants, receiving a college degree can be a huge milestone in their larger family story.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sheila Bock</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To these graduates, it’s important to show that the procurement of a college degree is part of an ongoing family immigration story characterized by hard work and perseverance. Images of butterflies – <a href="https://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/of-monarchs-and-migrants-the-arts-of-the-immigration-movement/">a symbol of the immigrant rights movement</a> – also dot many caps. A good number reference the <a href="https://www.adl.org/education/educator-resources/lesson-plans/what-is-the-dream-act-and-who-are-the-dreamers">DREAM Act</a> and the hostile political climate immigrants and their families find themselves in.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BiURe0gBYT3/?tagged=immigrad","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Everyone experiences college differently. For every student who spreads their wings socially or falls in love with their major, there are those who struggle to stay on top of tuition bills and keep up their grades. </p>
<p>While all of these students end up in the same place on graduation day, a critical look at these mortarboards gives us both a glimpse into the varied paths students take to graduation and the different futures that await them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96254/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sheila Bock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A few years ago, a folklorist started gathering data on the creative ways graduates were embellishing their caps. From student debt to immigration, some themes quickly emerged.Sheila Bock, Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Nevada, Las VegasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/917382018-02-28T11:38:21Z2018-02-28T11:38:21ZWhy deporting the ‘Dreamers’ is immoral<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208179/original/file-20180227-36680-1s5aobn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Immigrants and activists demonstrate in front of the Republican Party headquarters in Washington</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Luis Alonso Lugo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Feb. 26, the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/02/26/588813001/supreme-court-declines-to-take-up-key-daca-case-for-now">refused to review</a> a federal judge’s order that the Trump administration continue the <a href="https://www.ice.gov/daca">Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.</a></p>
<p>It was back in September 2017 that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/us/politics/trump-daca-dreamers-immigration.html">President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced</a> the end of the Obama-era program that shields hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-sessions-delivers-remarks-daca">Sessions argued</a> that this program rewarded those who disobeyed the laws of the United States. The United States has an obligation to <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-sessions-delivers-remarks-daca">“end the lawlessness”</a> of DACA, he argued, by winding down the program and, at the same time, making a case for the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/us/daca-dreamers-shutdown.html">deportation of the “Dreamers”</a> or those previously protected by DACA. </p>
<p>For now, the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/02/26/588813001/supreme-court-declines-to-take-up-key-daca-case-for-now">leaves the program in place</a>.</p>
<p>As a scholar, who has tried to understand <a href="https://phil.washington.edu/people/michael-blake">how morality should be applied to politics and law,</a> I do not agree with Sessions.</p>
<p>Respect for the law entails respect for moral values. Protecting the Dreamers isn’t about rejecting the rule of law. Rather, it reflects respect for the morality that the law proclaims. </p>
<h2>Can children be held morally responsible?</h2>
<p>The people covered by DACA came to the United States <a href="https://www.ice.gov/daca">when they were children</a>. Even if their entry into the United States was unlawful, the violation was committed by a child. The law of the United States affirms the common sense thought that children are unlike adults in the degree to which they morally responsible.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208181/original/file-20180227-36689-iu4a6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208181/original/file-20180227-36689-iu4a6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208181/original/file-20180227-36689-iu4a6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208181/original/file-20180227-36689-iu4a6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208181/original/file-20180227-36689-iu4a6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208181/original/file-20180227-36689-iu4a6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208181/original/file-20180227-36689-iu4a6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Dreamers came as children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mollyswork/36982427456/in/photolist-Ym1BeA-JJKm8k-cJP653-8nrVuo-cJP5Xy-FYje5w-8noASe-23dz3oU-XmPKNb-YCLfBP-24ftkHU-244sjCL-YCLg1e-YnzxWs-22cHJxv-9skxBR-XoMUbp-Y2BtGj-9soxf7-Ym131w-GavK2Y-9skBuM-XmPC79-9skBqM-gs3EvG-Ym1mGE-24ftkUW-YCKuyD-Z1wrTU-8nsuwE-8nmsc6-YYrU5Q-FYjdXN-YCLbSV-cPEAeu-YqfwZr-Ym1jwN-cmcN8o-23dz4du-23dz3Z3-Y2BiEq-npKsn3-XoMZyt-23Fzof2-XoMYri-XmPK7m-XoNsHt-9soBGf-gs36Ju-8nnV38">Molly Adams</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The laws of the United States do not, for example, <a href="http://www.cs.xu.edu/%7Eosborn/main/lawSchool/contractsHtml/bottomScreens/Briefs/Restatement%2012.%20Capacity%20to%20Contract.htm">let children create binding contracts</a>. Children are not allowed to perform many actions open to adults: They cannot <a href="http://codes.findlaw.com/ny/penal-law/pen-sect-260-21.html">smoke tobacco, get tattoos, drink alcohol</a>, <a href="http://nysdmv.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/173/%7E/the-driving-age-in-new-york-state-and-the-graduated-licensing-law">drive automobiles</a>, nor <a href="http://www.elections.ny.gov/votingregister.html">vote in federal elections</a>. Nor are they liable to the <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/graham-v-florida/">same sorts</a> of criminal punishments as adults. </p>
<p>Their degree of culpability for criminal acts is generally taken to be lower than that of adults – and some punishments, such as the death penalty, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2011/10-9646">are taken off the table for children entirely</a>. </p>
<p>In the case of DACA, however, deporting the Dreamers would involve subjecting people to a significant punishment. And it would do so in response to an action people took when they were children. This is exactly the sort of action the law itself regards as morally inappropriate. </p>
<h2>Punishment and deportation</h2>
<p>One response to this argument against deportation might be to say that deportation is not, in fact, a punishment. It is simply refusing to provide a benefit - namely, the right to remain within the United States. The foreign citizen who is refused the right to migrate to the United States is inconvenienced – but that’s hardly the same as being punished. And, indeed, deportation is generally understood in law to be a <a href="https://www.law.upenn.edu/journals/conlaw/articles/volume13/issue5/Markowitz13U.Pa.J.Const.L.1299(2011).pdf">“civil penalty,”</a> rather than a punishment. </p>
<p>Even a civil penalty, though, is something whose imposition must be justified morally. The justices of the Supreme Court of the United States have sometimes emphasized that being expelled from one’s home involves the <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/149/698/case.html">destruction of much of what one values</a>. It is the destruction of all that one has built. </p>
<p>This fact was recognized early in the history of the American legal system. Founding father James Madison, in discussing the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Alien.html">Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798</a>, argued strongly against deportation. <a href="http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=lled&fileName=004/lled004.db&recNum=566&itemLink=r%3Fammem%2Fhlaw%3A%40field">He said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“… if a banishment of this sort, be not a punishment, and among the severest of punishments, it will be difficult to imagine a doom to which the name might be applied.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Supreme Court agrees. It recently reaffirmed its commitment to the thought that deportation, even if a mere penalty, is <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-651.pdf">“a uniquely severe”</a> one.</p>
<h2>Residency and rights</h2>
<p>The DACA opponent might, in reply, argue that the morality of the law applies only to those people who are legitimately subject to the law. The laws of the United States might insist, in other words, that the United States has no particular obligations to those people who have entered into <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/illegal-immigrant">the political community, defined by its jurisdictional limits</a>, without any right. </p>
<p>Here, too, the law of the United States disagrees.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208182/original/file-20180227-36696-1t42n01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208182/original/file-20180227-36696-1t42n01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208182/original/file-20180227-36696-1t42n01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208182/original/file-20180227-36696-1t42n01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208182/original/file-20180227-36696-1t42n01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208182/original/file-20180227-36696-1t42n01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208182/original/file-20180227-36696-1t42n01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The law itself gives certain rights to the undocumented.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/131830793@N03/16989650198/in/photolist-rTjp6q-9ivJBr-SzAECv-RhWYzS-SzACjn-RauRDh-XUuX2L-85Ypi4-sYdpN-5AgqmS-4LxJF1-eutPcQ-Jwd66-4Ltwtn-4vpMvQ-7pBKdX-4LxJFQ-4Ltvjc-nXyyV3-4Ltvk2-8kub3D-RcstVR-Q9ptKe-spQNRh-RjAEBC-SzADDX-SzADqv-RhWZUf-RhWZ7U-RZMwQy-RhX3Ws-RZMwVU-N6xyS3-SkJRPU-Q9ptCa-Q9ptyc-Q6CbAC-Q9ptnR-RjAEFq-RjAEAW-Q9ptF6-RjAEHu-QNHXfs-RjAEx9-Q6CbGE-RjAEuU-RcstS4-Q9ptsk-Q6CbyJ-RjAEwh">David Davies</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The mere fact of being found within the United States – whether rightfully or not – <a href="https://www.nilc.org/get-involved/community-education-resources/know-your-rights/">provides one with significant rights</a> under the Constitution. The law itself gives the undocumented legal rights to bring claims in vindication of their constitutional rights.</p>
<p>Undocumented children, for instance, have a constitutional right to be provided with public schooling. The Supreme Court, in defending this principle, argued that all people within the state’s jurisdiction - <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/457/202/case.html">“even aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful”</a> – are guaranteed due process under the law.</p>
<h2>Morality and migration</h2>
<p>Yes, nothing in the law requires the opening of all borders. And it is true that the United States does not have an obligation to provide the right to enter or stay in the country to all who might desire that right. </p>
<p>However, the Dreamers are not like other people. The simple fact of where they are now provides them with constitutional standing denied to outsiders. </p>
<p>And, as emphasized earlier, whatever wrong they might have done in crossing into the United States, they did as children. The revocation of DACA, however, would announce that they are rightly subjected to a significant – indeed, a devastating – punishment, in virtue of an act committed in childhood. </p>
<p>Law is not the same as morality. <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674554610">But morality can sometimes look to law</a>, in determining where its deliberations might begin. If the deportation of the DACA recipients would violate the moral principles that underlie the American legal system, there is at least some reason to think that such deportation is morally wrong. </p>
<p>Contrary to Jeff Sessions, I believe that the United States would not respect the law best by deporting the Dreamers. It would respect it best by living up to the moral ideals that make the law worth following.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91738/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Blake receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.</span></em></p>Conservatives on migration claim that allowing the DACA recipients to stay shows disrespect for the law. The moral principles that underlie the American legal system, however, tell a different story.Michael Blake, Professor of Philosophy, Public Policy, and Governance, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/909232018-02-21T23:59:04Z2018-02-21T23:59:04ZCanada’s merit-based immigration system is no ‘magic bullet’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207337/original/file-20180221-132660-1qclwo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. President Donald Trump points to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as he welcomes him to the White House in Washington, D.C. in October 2017. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Donald Trump has made comprehensive immigration reform in the United States one of his key legislative goals. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/31/us/politics/trump-state-of-the-union-immigration.html">He’s proposed bringing the U.S. immigration system</a> “into the 21st century” by providing a path to citizenship for some undocumented migrants and by fully securing the country’s southern border. </p>
<p>Central to his plans is a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-27/">merit-based, Canada-style immigration system</a> that would replace the current American system that focuses on <a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/family-immigration.html">family reunification</a> and a <a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/diversity-visa-program-entry.html">diversity lottery</a>. </p>
<p>But is merit-based immigration the simple solution for the complex set of immigration-related issues facing the United States? </p>
<p>Canada’s “merit-based” system <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-canada-is-inspiring-scandinavian-countries-on-immigration-90911">provides some lessons</a> for the United States. Despite the relative success of the Canadian merit-based system, Canada’s experience shows there’s no magic bullet.</p>
<h2>What does “merit-based” mean?</h2>
<p>“Merit-based” immigration systems are based on the principle of selecting newcomers according to their skills, education, adaptability, language proficiency and overall human capital. </p>
<p>These metrics, proponents argue, allow immigrants to fill specific labour market needs. But they also act as predictors of how a newcomer might adapt to a new social, economic and cultural environment. </p>
<p>Yet <a href="https://nyti.ms/2C0Aczk">the notion of merit is complex, contextual and highly politicized</a>. </p>
<p>All immigration selection programs are rooted in implicit and explicit definitions of merit, whether they’re based on economic criteria, ideas of cultural compatibility or family relationships. From that standpoint, all immigration programs are “merit-based” systems.</p>
<p>Current U.S. political debates tend to pit the programs of some countries such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/raise-act-global-panel-of-scholars-explains-merit-based-immigration-82062">Canada, Australia and New Zealand</a> against the U.S. system as it exists today. </p>
<p>As several analysts and researchers have shown, however, family ties and <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/migrant-social-networks-vehicles-migration-integration-and-development">social links</a> can also be considered a form of merit, and may have positive impacts on immigrants’ future contributions to their new home.</p>
<p>Consequently, when it comes to immigration, there is no objective definition of what “merit” really means.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207390/original/file-20180221-132663-4pwye6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207390/original/file-20180221-132663-4pwye6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207390/original/file-20180221-132663-4pwye6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207390/original/file-20180221-132663-4pwye6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207390/original/file-20180221-132663-4pwye6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207390/original/file-20180221-132663-4pwye6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207390/original/file-20180221-132663-4pwye6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A child looks on at a citizenship ceremony hosted by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada at Government House in Halifax in November 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Canadian Press/Andrew Vaughan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Merit-based systems have also been criticized for reinforcing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/19/points-based-immigration-racism">global human capital inequalities</a> and for indirectly sorting candidates based on <a href="https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/fs/gborjas/publications/journal/CardFreeman1993.pdf">ethnic and cultural origins.</a></p>
<p>But proponents see merit-based systems as yielding better integration outcomes. They also argue that they allow for better management of immigration levels, <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/selecting-economic-stream-immigrants-through-points-systems">build public trust</a> and are more responsive to labour market dynamics.</p>
<p>Trump says the system will help <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/03/03/donald-trump-praises-canada-immigration-system-again/98685784/">ensure economic growth, economic mobility for both native-born Americans and immigrants</a> and will close the door to unwanted immigrants. </p>
<h2>Canada’s “merit-based” system</h2>
<p>Canada implemented a points system in <a href="https://www.pier21.ca/research/immigration-history/immigration-regulations-order-in-council-pc-1967-1616-1967">1967</a> in order to move away from origin-based selection of immigrants. Fifty years later, in 2017, Canada admitted <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/annual-report-parliament-immigration-2017.html">296,346 permanent legal immigrants</a>. About 52 per cent of them entered through <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada.html">different categories</a> of the “economic” class of the immigration program, Canada’s own version of a “merit-based” immigration system. </p>
<p>Under this system, economic immigration candidates are evaluated and ranked using a <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/become-candidate/eligibility/federal-skilled-workers/six-selection-factors-federal-skilled-workers.html">100 points selection factor grid</a>. The selection factor grid is a 100-point selection grid that considers factors such as age, education, work specialization, work experience in Canada and abroad as well as arranged employment in Canada.</p>
<p>Applicants to the <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry.html">federal skilled workers program</a> are further ranked according to a <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/become-candidate/criteria-comprehensive-ranking-system/grid.html">1,200-point Comprehensive Ranking System</a> (CRS).</p>
<p>Would-be immigrants to Canada are also evaluated for <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/become-candidate/eligibility/federal-skilled-workers/six-selection-factors-federal-skilled-workers.html#toc5">adaptability</a>, measured by elements such as past experiences in Canada, but also by the presence of relatives in the country and their spouses’ language proficiency.</p>
<p>So even when measuring for “merit,” the Canadian immigration system does include a recognition of the importance of family ties and social networks.</p>
<p>What’s more, not all of the 159,125 individuals who entered Canada through the economic class in 2017 were selected using the economic criteria. </p>
<p><a href="https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/2fbb56bd-eae7-4582-af7d-a197d185fc93?_ga=2.53271276.557796671.1519245839-574487783.1518018590">Between 2006 and 2015</a>, only 41 to 49 per cent of these individuals were selected directly based on their potential for contributing to the Canadian economy. The rest of the economic class is comprised of close family members of the main applicant, like <a href="http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2017390-eng.htm">spouses and children</a>.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, Canada’s experience overall with its immigration program has been positive. Among other benefits, <a href="https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/national-survey-reveals-the-canadian-public-opinion-about-immigration-has-remained-stable-or-grown-more-positive-over-the-past-year-598322281.html">it’s been credited</a> with building the Canadian public’s support for relatively high immigration levels.</p>
<p>But merit-based immigration programs demand investment into the system, and they may have unintended consequences. Canada’s merit-based program provides three important lessons for U.S. policymakers and citizens:</p>
<h2>Lesson 1: “Merit-based” is only the beginning</h2>
<p>A central argument by proponents of merit-based immigration is that it will lead to better immigrant integration outcomes. </p>
<p>While that’s largely true, a constellation of social and state actions also affect how immigrants fare in their newly adopted homes.</p>
<p>Two are especially important: Immigrant integration services and efforts to find jobs for immigrants.</p>
<p>Canada funds <a href="http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/newcomers/services/index.asp?_ga=2.48629286.1620380811.1519060787-574487783.1518018590">immigrant integration programs </a>that range from language training to information on jobs, bridging programs to jobs and job training. While Canada offers specific social programs for <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/economic-integration-refugees-canada-mixed-record">refugees</a>, several services are also available to all classes of permanent immigrants. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207392/original/file-20180221-132663-1cba0te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207392/original/file-20180221-132663-1cba0te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207392/original/file-20180221-132663-1cba0te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207392/original/file-20180221-132663-1cba0te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207392/original/file-20180221-132663-1cba0te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207392/original/file-20180221-132663-1cba0te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207392/original/file-20180221-132663-1cba0te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Three-year-old Simboo runs into the arms of her mother, Jelele Etefa, as they pose for a group photo following a Canadian citizenship ceremony in Halifax in February 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, Canada plans to spend just over <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/report-plans-priorities/2015-2016.html#a1.3">$1 billion</a> on immigrant integration services in 2018. </p>
<p>Experience and research have shown these programs are critical to helping merit-based immigrants succeed economically and socially. They also increase immigrants’ overall sense of belonging to their new society and <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/TCM-canadian-exceptionalism">encourage social participation</a>.</p>
<p>But integration services are not enough: Canada’s experience shows that while immigrants selected based on their economic criteria fare better in the labour market than others, many of them still endure economic difficulties.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/data-on-canadian-immigrants-from-shithole-countries-might-surprise-trump-90088">Data on Canadian immigrants from 'shithole' countries might surprise Trump</a>
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<p>Underemployment, trouble entering the labour market and the need to go back to school, despite having university degrees, <a href="https://biv.com/article/2017/10/skilled-immigrants-face-tough-job-market">are all too common experiences</a> for Canadian immigrants even if they meet the “merit-based” criteria. </p>
<p>Skills-based immigration programs can easily run amok if the labour market can’t accommodate foreign education and skills credentials. As a consequence, both <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/foreign-credential-recognition/consultations.html">Canada’s federal and provincial governments have had to invest</a> in educating employers — and are still working to create and enforce <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/foreign-credential-recognition/funding-framework.html">standards for foreign skills recognition</a>. </p>
<p>Canada’s experience proves that a merit-based system demands much more than simply choosing “the right” immigrants. Governments must invest in supporting them once they’ve been admitted.</p>
<h2>Lesson 2: Immigrants & labour market needs</h2>
<p>Matching the demands of the labour market to new immigrants is a challenge. That’s due in part to the difference between the speed at which labour markets evolve and how quickly an immigration system can operate to bring job-ready candidates to any given country and employer. </p>
<p>The challenge is compounded by popular and political ideas about who is an “ideal” economic immigrant — for example, a doctor or an engineer — and the actual labour needs of the country.</p>
<p>In the last 30 years, those types of disconnects have been <a href="http://irpp.org/research-studies/choices-vol14-no5/">a constant test</a> in Canada but also in other countries.</p>
<p>In the early 1990s, the Canadian government’s preferred solution was to select immigrants based on predictions about their capacity to adapt to a changing labour market. To do so, they used <a href="http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2014361-eng.htm">human capital</a> as the main merit criterion. That had several unintended effects, including the <a href="http://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2011/03/taxi-driver-syndrome/">underemployment</a> of many immigrants and labour shortages in several technical sectors. </p>
<p>Since then, the Canadian government has made a move towards a more demand-based model, and provides provinces and territories as well as employers with a bigger say in the selection system. </p>
<p>More recently, the system was again amended to <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/immigration/2018/02/12/having-a-job-offer-is-no-longer-key-to-immigrating-to-canada.html">reintroduce human capital factors</a> because the immigrants selected by the demand-driven model were not considered skilled enough.</p>
<p>Canada’s experience is one of a tug of war between planning for long-term labour needs and short-term labour supply.</p>
<p>Despite these adjustments, current Canadian programs still struggle to address the needs of labour markets that are increasingly divided between the need for high-skilled versus low-skilled workers, like those in short supply in the service sector.</p>
<p>Consequently, Canada relies increasingly on temporary immigration to meet market demands. In the last 10 years, the number of so-called <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/operational-bulletins-manuals/temporary-residents/foreign-workers.html">temporary foreign workers</a> <a href="https://maytree.com/wp-content/uploads/shaping-the-future.pdf">has grown tremendously</a>, as have concerns about <a href="http://irpp.org/research-studies/study-no35/">worker abuses and overall precarity</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207344/original/file-20180221-132680-mdaunb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207344/original/file-20180221-132680-mdaunb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207344/original/file-20180221-132680-mdaunb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207344/original/file-20180221-132680-mdaunb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207344/original/file-20180221-132680-mdaunb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207344/original/file-20180221-132680-mdaunb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207344/original/file-20180221-132680-mdaunb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Temporary foreign workers Honorato Peralta and his wife, Vanessa Tamondong, are seen here during a news conference in Vancouver in December 2014. They said they were victimized by an employer and their immigration consultant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward</span></span>
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<p>And despite <a href="http://irpp.org/research-studies/study-no55/">reforms aimed at providing temporary workers a path to permanent residency</a>, the need for those low-skilled labourers runs counter to the long-term social and economic objective of Canada’s merit-based system. </p>
<p>What is “best” for the economy, and what types of immigrants are most needed, often eschews simple answers.</p>
<h2>Lesson 3: The need for bureaucrats</h2>
<p>Trust in the bureaucracy is critical to a successful merit-based system. Any immigrant-selection system relies on a comprehensive, technical method of assessing would-be newcomers, the gathering of information on the labour market and on global migration trends, as well as the monitoring and evaluation of programs. </p>
<p>On the ground, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Zk1BCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA41&ots=H9pZosbZ08&dq=vic%20satzewich%20implementation&hl=fr&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">considerable work</a> is required to assess individual applications based on merit criteria. While technology makes these tasks easier than before, well-trained public servants and well-funded public infrastructure are needed.<br>
In Canada and elsewhere, government workers use research, field expertise and discretion to assess applicants. The need for accurate data along with the complexity of these programs often make elected officials dependent on the expertise and advice of public servants. </p>
<p>Bureaucrats are uniquely positioned to see the negative consequences of selection programs, and to propose innovative solutions based on their hands-on experience. </p>
<p>What’s more, experiments that have involved employers in immigrant selection programs remain inconclusive. While they remain important partners, bureaucrats still have the advantage over employers in assessing immigrants.</p>
<p>The move to merit-based systems often politicize not only overall immigration levels, but also the very definition of “merit.” </p>
<p>The cacophony of partisan advice and political opinion on these often highly technical assessments of immigrants means it’s crucial to have reliable data on immigration and unbiased analysis. The trust of Canadian elected officials in the country’s immigration bureaucracy is one of the secret ingredients of its success.</p>
<h2>Hardly a ‘magic bullet’</h2>
<p>A merit-based immigration might address some of America’s immigration challenges.</p>
<p>But it could also have negative consequences, especially as long as state-funded integration services remain <a href="https://escholarship.org/content/qt2nc0m8bm/qt2nc0m8bm.pdf">comparatively limited and not accessible to all immigrants in the U.S.</a>. </p>
<p>The U.S. government will also need work to ensure that the immigrants it selects will respond to the actual labour market needs of its diverse economy. The distrust the Trump administration clearly harbours towards the American federal bureaucracy might also create considerable challenges to the design and implementation of a merit-based system. </p>
<p>Canada’s experience shows that selecting immigrants based on economic merit is not a silver bullet. Finding the “right” immigrants is the only one step in a large group of government actions that support immigrants and the country overall.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90923/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mireille Paquet does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Canada’s experience shows that selecting immigrants based on economic merit is not a silver bullet; finding the “right” immigrants is the only the first step.Mireille Paquet, Professor of Political Science, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/917872018-02-14T11:39:52Z2018-02-14T11:39:52ZTrying to keep up with the ‘Dreamers’ debate? Here are 6 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206280/original/file-20180213-44660-fx3i20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Immigrant rights supporters in Miami.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Lynne Sladky</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The future remains uncertain for a group of young people who were brought to the U.S. as children without legal authorization. </p>
<p>Some of these so-called “Dreamers” were temporarily shielded from deportation through an Obama-era program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. In 2017, President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/us/politics/trump-daca-dreamers-immigration.html">announced he would</a> rescind DACA and tasked Congress with finding a durable solution before March 5, 2018. However, lawsuits were filed against Trump’s attempt to end DACA and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-ruling/second-u-s-judge-blocks-trump-administration-from-ending-daca-program-idUSKCN1FX2TJ">two federal courts</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/daca-injunction-what-a-federal-judges-ruling-means-for-dreamers/2018/01/10/ecb5d492-f60c-11e7-a9e3-ab18ce41436a_story.html">have ruled to reinstate</a> the program until the cases are resolved.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is holding up <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/12/mitch-mcconnell-dreamers-immigration-401209">his end of a bargain</a> to end a January government shutdown led by Democrats, in an effort to spur action on Dreamers. As promised, the Senate is now holding an open debate on immigration. </p>
<p>Here is a roundup of archival stories to help you follow along.</p>
<h2>1. DACA’s terms and conditions</h2>
<p>DACA came with a long list of terms and conditions. For example, to apply you had to be a certain age and meet certain educational requirements.</p>
<p>Immigration scholar <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kevin-johnson-322147">Kevin Johnson</a> of the University of California, Davis, points out, DACA offered protection for only about 1.8 million of the estimated 3.6 million people who were brought to the U.S. as children. Of those 1.8 million who were eligible, <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-path-to-citizenship-for-1-8-million-will-leave-out-nearly-half-of-all-dreamers-90899">only about 800,000 actually applied and received protection through DACA</a>.</p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-230" class="tc-infographic" height="575px" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/230/0383290ac53a9bb85bf4290bcbe95349d1676be3/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>2. DACA doesn’t cover unaccompanied minors</h2>
<p>It’s important to point out that DACA also does not apply to “unaccompanied minors.” You may have heard the term used especially in 2014, when unprecedented numbers of children traveling alone were arriving at the U.S. border with Mexico. Generally, these case are handled under a different set of laws and policies.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/stephanie-l-canizales-133281">Stephanie Canizales</a>, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Southern California, Dornsife, has spent time doing in-depth interviews and observational research on this group of migrants, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-unaccompanied-youth-become-exploited-workers-in-the-us-73738">who face a separate set of issues around labor exploitation</a>.</p>
<p>Canizales writes, “Undocumented working youth migrate to Los Angeles in hopes of working to support their families who remain in their home countries. … Much like with their adult coworkers, economic necessity and fear of removal from the workplace and the country keep undocumented migrant youth workers quiet in cases of exploitation, and docile and efficient on the job.”</p>
<h2>3. DACA improves mental health</h2>
<p>There is research that shows that DACA <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-daca-affected-the-mental-health-of-undocumented-young-adults-83341">has improved the mental health of those who received it</a>. Scholars <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/elizabeth-aranda-334454">Elizabeth Aranda</a> of the University of South Florida, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/elizabeth-vaquera-405048">Elizabeth Vaquera</a> of George Washington University, explain that being an undocumented immigrant in the U.S. carries with it severe mental health consequences. These include problems such as chronic worry, sadness, isolation and even suicidal thoughts.</p>
<p>Although DACA only offers temporary protection, the relief recipients felt was significant. They write, “These youth shared with us that they were more motivated and happy after Obama’s executive order. As Kate, one of our participants, told us, DACA ‘has gone a long way to give me some sense of security and stability that I haven’t had in a very long time.’”</p>
<h2>4. Dreamers would boost US economy</h2>
<p>DACA critics have suggested that undocumented immigrants negatively impact the U.S. economy because they steal jobs from native-born people. In fact, there is growing evidence that shows how incorporating undocumented immigrants into the workforce actually boosts economic growth. For example, take City University of New York sociologist <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/amy-hsin-437057">Amy Hsin</a>’s study that shows <a href="https://theconversation.com/daca-isnt-just-about-social-justice-legalizing-dreamers-makes-economic-sense-too-90603">what would happen if the DREAM Act was passed</a>.</p>
<p>She found that it would have no significant effect on the wages of U.S.-born workers. It would create more economic opportunities by encouraging legalized immigrants to make education gains. Hsin writes, “Overall, we estimate that the increases in productivity under the DREAM Act would raise the United States GDP by US$15.2 billion and significantly increase tax revenue.”</p>
<h2>5. The moral argument for Dreamers</h2>
<p>Arguably, at the core of the effort to protect Dreamers is a belief that the U.S. has a tradition of embracing those who arrive at its shores seeking a better life. However, a quick scan of history would reveal that the U.S. has not in fact always been so welcoming. As <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/carrie-tirado-bramen-438943">Carrie Tirado Bramen</a> of the University at Buffalo explains, many writers have described U.S. history as an “ongoing duel between generosity and greed.”</p>
<p>Bramen writes that <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-daca-debate-which-version-of-america-nice-or-nasty-will-prevail-90731">this issue gets at the core of American identity</a>: “At stake is not only the fate of the Dreamers, but also how the country and the rest of the world understands the idea of America.”</p>
<h2>6. Millions still in the shadows</h2>
<p>Dreamers are the main impetus for the current debate on immigration. As professor <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/matthew-wright-435291">Matthew Wright</a> of American University points out, a victory for Dreamers would be seen as a big “win” for Democrats and some Republicans.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Trump and immigration hard-liners see it as an opportunity to strike a deal that would also include funding for additional security at the U.S.-Mexico border.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/ahead-of-government-shutdown-congress-sets-its-sights-on-not-so-comprehensive-immigration-reform-89998">Neither side has sought to address the remaining millions of undocumented immigrants</a> who are not Dreamers, and who have created lives and community ties in the U.S. For decades, Congress has stalled on comprehensive immigration reform that would offer undocumented immigrants a path to legal status. Even if Congress passes a Dreamer solution, the vast majority of undocumented immigrants will continue to live in fear of detention, deportation and long-term family separation.</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to correct scholar Elizabeth Aranda’s affiliation, she is a professor at the University of South Florida.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91787/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Scholars have you covered on all sides of the ‘Dreamers’ issue, with solid research to boot.Danielle Douez, Associate Editor, Politics + SocietyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/909002018-01-31T07:20:20Z2018-01-31T07:20:20Z3 key quotes from Trump’s first State of the Union, explained<p><em>Editor’s note: President Donald Trump, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/live-blog/2018-01-25/u-s-president-trump-delivers-state-of-the-union-address">in his first State of the Union address</a>, took credit for a growing economy, urged Congress to invest more in infrastructure and defense and promoted an immigration plan that ties citizenship for <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/dreamers-24037">Dreamers</a> to border security and an end to family-based migration. During the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2018-state-of-the-union-address/trump-there-has-never-been-better-time-start-living-american-n842706">80-minute speech</a> – the third-longest State of the Union – he touched on a wide range of topics, from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/opioids-1046">opioid crisis</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/gangs-3291">MS-13</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/north-korea-2060">North Korea</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/foreign-aid-988">foreign aid</a>. We asked three academics to choose key quotes and add the context missing from the <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/state-union-full-text-795748">president’s words</a>.</em></p>
<h2>Stick to the facts – they’re good enough</h2>
<p><strong>Greg Wright, University of California, Merced</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“This is in fact our new American moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To back this up, Trump said we’re finally seeing rising wages after years of stagnation, noted that the stock market is smashing “one record after another” and highlighted Apple’s recent plan to “invest a total of $350 billion in America” and hire 20,000 workers.</p>
<p>While the newness of this moment in American history is debatable, the economy under President Trump is following a well-worn path set down by the previous administration. And that’s fairly good news indeed. The question is, can he claim credit for any of it?</p>
<p>It is true that we are finally seeing <a href="https://qz.com/1119584/us-unemployment-rate-jobs-are-plentiful-real-wage-growth-is-poor/">rising wages</a>, but these gains go back well into the Obama administration, and in fact the past year has seen only <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf">modest wage growth</a>. The stock market’s <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/16/investing/dow-26000-stocks-wall-street/index.html">winning streak</a> is impressive. Of course, this trend also <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/jan/08/how-trump-obama-compare-stock-market/">began under Obama</a>. </p>
<p>The key point is that these economic trends are largely beyond the control of the current administration, or any administration, for better or worse. As an example, real income <a href="https://qz.com/1119584/us-unemployment-rate-jobs-are-plentiful-real-wage-growth-is-poor/">fell</a> over Trump’s first year in office in part due to rising inflation, which eats into every dollar’s buying power. There’s not a lot a president can do about inflation. </p>
<p>What about increased investment by U.S. companies like Apple? Here the president is on surer footing in claiming that the tax cuts he signed into law last year are having an impact. Unfortunately, Apple <a href="https://slate.com/business/2018/01/no-apple-is-not-creating-20-000-jobs-because-of-the-tax-bill.html">is not investing</a> $350 billion – at least not yet, it’s simply repatriating money it has always had access to – and its <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/01/apple-accelerates-us-investment-and-job-creation/">plans</a> to add 20,000 jobs appear largely unrelated to tax cuts or other government policies. </p>
<p>At the same time, the tax cuts will <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/12/16/gop-tax-bill-winners-and-losers/">undoubtedly spur</a> new capital investments, some of which <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21730696-white-house-report-puts-economists-each-others-throats-will-corporate-tax-cuts">may eventually lead</a> to modest pay raises for U.S. workers, credit for which should go to President Trump and congressional Republicans. </p>
<p>Trump also highlighted Exxon Mobil’s <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/29/exxon-mobil-to-invest-50-billion-in-us-over-5-years-citing-tax-reform.html">very recent announcement</a> that it will invest billions in the U.S. as a response to the tax bill. Once again, Trump’s actual words turned out to be too good to be true. He boasted $50 billion, but $15 billion of that was previously announced. Still, $35 billion as a result of the tax cuts is serious money.</p>
<p>In summary, on the economic front there is basically good news. Good enough, in fact, to be honest with the American people about the state of the union.</p>
<h2>The state of our infrastructure</h2>
<p><strong>Steven Pressman, Colorado State University</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It is time to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure … I am asking both parties to come together to give us the safe, fast, reliable and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The president is right about this. U.S. infrastructure is in utter disrepair. The American Society of Civil Engineers <a href="https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2017-Infrastructure-Report-Card.pdf">gave it a D+ grade</a> in its most recent report. Trump proposed spending $1.5 trillion to fix the problem. </p>
<p>While tackling it is surely necessary, the president’s solution is flawed in terms of both timing and method.</p>
<p>First, the timing. An infrastructure program <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2011/09/08/10257/government-spending-can-create-jobs-and-it-has/">was needed</a> in 2009, after the U.S. economy collapsed and job creation was paramount. But today, unemployment stands at <a href="https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000">4.1 percent</a>, near full employment. The new tax law passed in December <a href="https://taxfoundation.org/final-tax-cuts-jobs-act-state-impact/">will likely</a> further boost spending and reduce unemployment. Except during wars, when young men were fighting overseas rather than making things in the U.S., the <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE">unemployment rate has rarely</a> dipped below 4 percent over the past 70 years. With <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/08/02/541104795/trump-to-unveil-legislation-limiting-legal-immigration">immigration off the table</a>, where will we find the workers to build this infrastructure?</p>
<p>Second, in terms of method, the president wants state and local governments to “partner” in infrastructure projects and pay part of the cost. This will require that they raise taxes. Areas in good financial health, such as New York City, will be able to do this. Areas struggling economically and in most desperate need, such as Flint, Michigan, will not.</p>
<p>In my view, the economic problem we face today is not insufficient spending, which <a href="https://www.pragcap.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/keynes-and-deficits-collier.pdf">an infrastructure program would remedy</a>, but <a href="http://rooseveltinstitute.org/inequality-stagnation-market-power/">excessive corporate power</a> that is hurting American workers. The real incomes of full-time U.S. workers, which have stagnated for decades, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf">fell by 1 percent in 2017 alone</a>, even as <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/29/us-stocks-open-higher-sp-500-tracking-for-best-year-since-2013.html">stocks</a> and <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2017-05-23/only-on-ap-ceos-got-biggest-raise-since-2013">CEO pay</a> soared.</p>
<p>The solution to this problem involves strengthening worker rights, not weakening them, as the <a href="https://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/economy/reports/2018/01/26/168366/president-trumps-policies-hurting-american-workers/">Trump administration policies have been doing</a>. I believe giving workers a meaningful raise is far more important than improving our nation’s infrastructure – as bad as it is, our paychecks are worse. </p>
<h2>A non-compromise on immigration</h2>
<p><strong>Stephanie L. Canizales, University of Southern California</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It is time to reform these outdated immigration rules and finally bring our immigration system into the 21st century. These four pillars represent a down-the-middle compromise, and one that will create a safe, modern and lawful immigration system.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The four pillars the president outlined in his speech include a path to citizenship for 1.8 million immigrants brought to the U.S. as undocumented children, increased border enforcement, termination of the visa lottery and an end to “chain migration.” </p>
<p>I believe the first proposal rightfully brings Dreamers out of limbo, and I applaud the president for taking this stand. The other three “pillars,” however, rest on shaky foundations that deserve closer scrutiny.</p>
<p>Trump’s second pillar - more border enforcement - seems to be premised on the notion that new immigrants are synonymous with drugs, gangs and depressed job and wage growth, and that only his “beautiful wall” and more border agents can protect Americans. This ignores the fact that immigrants are <a href="https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/criminalization-immigration-united-states">less likely to commit serious crimes</a> than native-born Americans. As for MS-13, which Trump spotlighted as a source of violence in his speech, it is a homegrown gang, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39645640">born and bred in the streets of Los Angeles, California</a>, not native to Central America.</p>
<p>As for claims that immigrants hurt natives, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/want-a-stronger-economy-give-immigrants-a-warm-welcome-73264">evidence is clear</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/daca-isnt-just-about-social-justice-legalizing-dreamers-makes-economic-sense-too-90603">substantial</a> that they do not. Little competition occurs for the low-wage occupations that employ undocumented immigrants, such as those in <a href="http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-farms-immigration/">agriculture</a>, <a href="http://www.youthcirculations.com/blog/2015/9/9/fast-fashion-slow-integration-guatemalan-youth-navigate-life-and-labor-in-los-angeles">garment manufacturing</a>, and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/11/the-sacrifices-of-an-immigrant-caregiver">domestic work</a>. In fact, removing immigrants would <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/09/08/trump-undocumented-immigrants-daca/">hurt our economy</a> through the loss of sales taxes, property taxes and other economic contributions.</p>
<p>Trump’s third proposal, to terminate the visa lottery, willfully misrepresents immigration law. The <a href="https://www.us-immigration.com/greencard/Green-Card-Lottery.html">diversity visa lottery</a> - despite its name - does not “randomly hand out green cards” but allocates 50,000 visas each year to countries with low rates of migration. To be eligible, applicants must meet various educational, occupational, security and health criteria. </p>
<p>And his fourth pillar not only contains falsehoods but a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/01/11/what-chain-migration-and-why-does-trump-want-end/1022479001/">derogatory slur</a> that dehumanizes the men, women and children who seek a new life in the U.S. Trump’s desire to end “chain migration” rests on claims, which he repeated in the address, that immigrants with permission to remain in the U.S. exploit current policy by sponsoring “virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives” to join them.</p>
<p>This is far from the truth. Only parents, spouses and unmarried minor children <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/0-0-0-1/0-0-0-29/0-0-0-1083.html">may be sponsored</a> through family-based immigration.</p>
<p>The pillars Trump proposes are not, in my view, a “down-the-middle” compromise with the guarantee of a “safe, modern and lawful” system. If lawmakers agree to such a plan, all immigrant communities would pay a steep price, even if protecting Dreamers is a worthy goal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90900/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trump touted his administration’s economic successes and laid out his immigration plan in an 80-minute speech to Congress. Our experts weigh in.Steven Pressman, Professor of Economics, Colorado State UniversityGreg Wright, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of California, MercedStephanie L. Canizales, Ph.D. Candidate, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/908992018-01-30T23:22:46Z2018-01-30T23:22:46ZTrump’s path to citizenship for 1.8 million will leave out nearly half of all Dreamers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204118/original/file-20180130-38219-3uv3v7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anxiously awaiting the State of the Union</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Susan Walsh</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Which “Dreamers” will be given legal recourse to stay in the U.S., and which ones will be left out?</p>
<p>This is the central question surrounding current debate in Washington over a group of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. The scramble for a solution has taken on greater urgency since the Trump administration announced that DACA would be phased out and ended in March 2018. That deadline is currently on hold due to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/daca-injunction-what-a-federal-judges-ruling-means-for-dreamers/2018/01/10/ecb5d492-f60c-11e7-a9e3-ab18ce41436a_story.html?utm_term=.bc7147a36ae9">a federal court</a> ruling – but a battle in Congress over the Dreamers’ fate closed the federal government for 69 hours earlier this month.</p>
<p>Some conservatives have <a href="https://theconversation.com/ahead-of-government-shutdown-congress-sets-its-sights-on-not-so-comprehensive-immigration-reform-89998">balked at the idea</a> of giving “amnesty” to any lawbreakers whatsoever. However, in a recent proposal, President Donald Trump has offered to provide a path to legalization for 1.8 million Dreamers who either received <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/archive/consideration-deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-daca">Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals</a> or were DACA-eligible. </p>
<p>What would that mean? </p>
<h2>Left out of DACA</h2>
<p>DACA is an Obama-era program that provided limited rights to undocumented youth who were brought to the U.S. as children and met certain requirements. Since its inception in 2012, DACA provided relief to <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/01/unauthorized-immigrants-covered-by-daca-face-uncertain-future/">close to 800,000</a> young undocumented immigrants. Recipients were temporarily shielded from deportation and provided with work authorization. </p>
<p>However, the Migration Policy Institute estimates that <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/deferred-action-unauthorized-immigrant-parents-analysis-dapas-potential-effects-families">more than 3.6 million</a> unauthorized immigrants entered the U.S. before the age of 18. Their data show that slightly more than <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/trump-immigration-plan-lopsided-proposal">1.8 million unauthorized immigrants</a> met the criteria for applying for DACA.</p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-230" class="tc-infographic" height="575px" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/230/0383290ac53a9bb85bf4290bcbe95349d1676be3/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Why, then, did only about 800,000 actually receive it? </p>
<p>DACA only applied to undocumented immigrants who were younger than 31 as of June 15, 2012 and had come to the U.S. before age 16. They had to be in or have graduated from high school, had to have obtained a general education development certificate, or had to have served in the military. This left out some people.</p>
<p>Anyone with a criminal record of a felony or more than two misdemeanors or who posed “a threat to national security or public safety” was prohibited from receiving DACA. This left out others.</p>
<p>Additionally, some who were eligible did not apply out of fear that signing up might lead to them or their families being deported. Indeed, after Trump assumed office a number of DACA recipients were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/us/daniela-vargas-detained-daca-released.html?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=DF54DF259713EC1A373E92133D0298F9&gwt=pay">arrested and detained</a>. </p>
<h2>Trump’s proposal: Generous or not?</h2>
<p>President Trump’s latest <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/white-house-framework-immigration-reform-border-security/">immigration proposal</a> states that it would “provide legal status for DACA recipients and other DACA-eligible illegal immigrants, adjusting the time-frame to encompass a total population of approximately 1.8 million individuals.” The proposal appears to maintain the same requirements that existed for DACA.</p>
<p>Some supporters of the proposal have viewed the relief for that many undocumented immigrants as generous. However, the proposal would limit relief to about only one-half of Dreamers, ignoring the 1.8 million that never registered for DACA.</p>
<p>The Trump legalization plan would also only cover a minority of the total undocumented immigrant population – about 16 percent. According to the <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/interactives/unauthorized-immigrants/">Pew Research Center</a>, the total undocumented population in the United States is <a href="https://theconversation.com/counting-11-million-undocumented-immigrants-is-easier-than-you-think-67921">more than 11 million</a>.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the Trump proposal would leave roughly 9 million undocumented immigrants subject to deportation. </p>
<p>Millions of undocumented immigrants who have <a href="https://theconversation.com/deportees-in-mexico-tell-of-disrupted-lives-families-and-communities-90082">lived and worked in the U.S.</a> for years would not be eligible for legalization and face possible deportation. People with families – including U.S. citizen children – friends, jobs and communities in the United States will be affected. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-trumps-immigration-enforcement-could-affect-families-and-communities-69019">The fear</a> of removal <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-daca-affected-the-mental-health-of-undocumented-young-adults-83341">is real</a> and has had major health and other consequences on immigrant communities and families. </p>
<p>All of this is only part of what Trump’s proposal is seeking to do. The proposal calls for great increases in immigration enforcement, including the appropriation of billions of dollars to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. It also calls for increased detention and immigration enforcement and the expansion of expedited removal of noncitizens apprehended in the interior of the country. Moreover, the Trump proposal seeks drastic reductions of family-based immigration and an end to “extended-family chain migration” as well as elimination of the diversity visa program. </p>
<p>Organizations ranging from the <a href="http://aila.org/publications/videos/quicktakes/quicktake-232-white-house-immigration-proposal">American Immigration Lawyers Association</a> to the <a href="http://www.maldef.org/news/releases/2018_1_25_MALDEF_Statement_on_Trump_Administration_Immigration_Plan">Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund</a> believe that Trump’s legalization program for a portion of the undocumented community is not worth the formidable costs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90899/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar counts the winners and losers in Trump’s immigration proposal.Kevin Johnson, Dean and Professor of Public Interest Law and Chicana/o Studies, University of California, DavisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/906032018-01-24T11:39:12Z2018-01-24T11:39:12ZDACA isn’t just about social justice – legalizing Dreamers makes economic sense too<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203096/original/file-20180123-33560-qh4nod.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators chant slogans during an immigration rally in support of DACA.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Earlier this month, <a href="http://kxan.com/2017/12/02/daca-summit-gives-dreamers-hope-encouragement/">hopes were high</a> that a bipartisan deal could be reached to resolve the fate of the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/dreamers-24037">Dreamers</a>,” the millions of undocumented youth who were brought to the U.S. as children. </p>
<p>Those hopes <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/11/politics/daca-deal-obstacles-flake-white-house/index.html">all but vanished</a> on Jan. 11 as President Donald Trump aligned himself with hard-line anti-immigration advocates within the GOP and struck down bipartisan attempts to reach a resolution.</p>
<p>Now that optimism is re-emerging once more after Republican Senate leadership agreed, in exchange for ending the shutdown, to hold a vote on a solution to the young immigrants’ plight within weeks – if they haven’t reached a more comprehensive deal on immigration by then. But whether or not the president and Republicans can overcome the anti-immigrant elements in their party and reach a deal remains to be seen. </p>
<p><a href="https://cis.org/Immigration-Hurting-US-Worker">One of the arguments</a> advanced by those who oppose giving them citizenship is that doing so would hurt native-born workers and be a drain on the U.S. economy. My own research shows the exact opposite is true. </p>
<h2>Lives in limbo</h2>
<p>All in all, about <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/01/18/there-3-5-m-dreamers-and-most-may-face-nightmare/1042134001/">3.6 million immigrants</a> living in the U.S. entered the country as children. Without options for legal residency, their lives hang in the balance. </p>
<p>To address this problem, the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/web-video/vault-president-barack-obama-signs-daca">Obama administration created</a> the <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/consideration-deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-daca">Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals</a> program in 2012. <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/deferred-action-for-childhood-arrivals-daca-33587">DACA</a> gave <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/daca-four-participation-deferred-action-program-and-impacts-recipients">almost 800,000 of them</a> temporary legal work permits and reprieve from deportation. Although his successor terminated the program in September, this month a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/10/576963434/federal-judge-temporarily-blocks-trumps-decision-to-end-daca">federal court halted that process</a>, allowing current recipients the ability to renew their status. </p>
<p>Any cause for celebration, however, was short-lived as the Department of Justice immediately responded by asking the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling. The Supreme Court has not yet announced a decision. In the meantime, the future of DACA recipients remains uncertain.</p>
<p>Today, the best hope for a permanent fix for the Dreamers rests on bipartisan efforts to enact the 2017 DREAM Act – for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors – which would extend pathways to citizenship to undocumented youth who entered the United States as children, graduated from high school and have no criminal record. A version of the act was <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/349285-graham-durbin-call-for-action-on-dream-act-by-end-of-september">first introduced</a> in 2001 and will likely be up for discussion in coming weeks. </p>
<p>The debate surrounding the DREAM Act is often framed around two seemingly irreconcilable views. </p>
<p>On one side, <a href="http://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a14473133/kamala-harris-dream-act-op-ed">immigration activists advocate</a> for legalization based on pleas to our common humanity. These Dreamers, after all, were raised and educated in the United States. They are American in every sense but legally. </p>
<p>On the other, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/08/25/time-for-trump-to-keep-his-promises-daca-is-unconstitutional-and-bad-for-american-workers.html">critics</a> contend that legalization will come at a cost to U.S.-born workers, and their well-being should be prioritized. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202536/original/file-20180119-80171-1b2jixd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202536/original/file-20180119-80171-1b2jixd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202536/original/file-20180119-80171-1b2jixd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202536/original/file-20180119-80171-1b2jixd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202536/original/file-20180119-80171-1b2jixd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202536/original/file-20180119-80171-1b2jixd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202536/original/file-20180119-80171-1b2jixd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many immigrant advocates consider the DREAM Act the best hope for a permanent fix.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Lynne Sladky</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Impact of Dreamer citizenship on wages</h2>
<p>My <a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp11281.pdf">research</a> with economists Ryan Edwards and Francesc Ortega estimated the economic impact of the 2017 DREAM Act if it were to become law. About 2.1 million of the undocumented youths <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/mpi-estimates-number-dreamers-potentially-eligible-benefit-under-different-legalization">would likely be eligible</a> to become citizens based on its age and educational requirements. </p>
<p>Our research showed that immigrants given permanent legal work permits under the DREAM Act would not compete with low-skilled U.S.-born workers because only those with at least a high school degree are eligible for legalization. The act also encourages college attendance by making it one of the conditions for attaining legal residency. </p>
<p>We also found that the act would have no significant effect on the wages of U.S.-born workers regardless of education level because Dreamers make up such a small fraction of the labor force. U.S.-born college graduates and high school dropouts would experience no change in wages. Those with some college may experience small declines of at most 0.2 percent a year, while high school graduates would actually experience wage increases of a similar magnitude.</p>
<p>For the legalized immigrants, however, the benefits would be substantial. For example, legalized immigrants with some college education would see wages increase by about 15 percent, driven by expansions in employment opportunities due to legalization and by the educational gains that the DREAM Act encourages.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202539/original/file-20180119-80171-wjvwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202539/original/file-20180119-80171-wjvwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202539/original/file-20180119-80171-wjvwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202539/original/file-20180119-80171-wjvwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202539/original/file-20180119-80171-wjvwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202539/original/file-20180119-80171-wjvwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202539/original/file-20180119-80171-wjvwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Trump’s termination of DACA has put the lives of Dreamers like Faride Cuevas, second from right, in limbo.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Broader economic benefits</h2>
<p>The DREAM Act also promotes <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-dreamers-and-green-card-lottery-winners-strengthen-the-us-economy-82571">overall economic growth</a> by increasing the productivity of legalized workers and expanding the tax base. </p>
<p>Lacking legal work options, Dreamers <a href="https://www.rsfjournal.org/doi/pdf/10.7758/RSF.2017.3.4.06">tend to be overqualified</a> for the jobs they hold. My ongoing work with sociologist Holly Reed shows that the undocumented youth who make it to college are more motivated and academically prepared compared with their U.S.-born peers. This is at least in part because they had to overcome greater odds to attend college. </p>
<p>We find that they are also more likely than their native-born peers to graduate college with a degree. Yet despite being highly motivated and accomplished, undocumented college graduates are employed in jobs that are not commensurate with their education level, according to sociologist <a href="https://www.rsfjournal.org/doi/pdf/10.7758/RSF.2017.3.4.06">Esther Cho</a>. With legal work options, they will be able to find jobs that match their skills and qualifications, making them more productive. </p>
<p>Legalization also <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/08/30/science.aan5893">improves the mental health</a> of immigrants by <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-daca-affected-the-mental-health-of-undocumented-young-adults-83341">removing the social stigma</a> of being labeled a criminal and the looming threat of arrest and deportation. </p>
<p>From an economic standpoint, healthier and happier workers also make for a more productive workforce.</p>
<p>Overall, we estimate that the increases in productivity under the DREAM Act would raise the United States GDP by US$15.2 billion and significantly increase tax revenue.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202537/original/file-20180119-80194-16tge4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202537/original/file-20180119-80194-16tge4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202537/original/file-20180119-80194-16tge4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202537/original/file-20180119-80194-16tge4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202537/original/file-20180119-80194-16tge4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202537/original/file-20180119-80194-16tge4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202537/original/file-20180119-80194-16tge4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham have been leading recent efforts to pass bipartisan immigration reform.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Everyone can win</h2>
<p>The U.S. continues to grapple with how to incorporate the general population of nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the country. </p>
<p>The inability of the Trump administration and lawmakers from both parties to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/17/trump-rejects-horrible-bipartisan-immigration-plan-reuters.html">find common ground</a> is emblematic of just how <a href="http://news.gallup.com/poll/206681/worry-illegal-immigration-steady.aspx">deeply divided</a> Americans are between those who want to send most of them home and others who favor a path toward citizenship for many if not most of them. </p>
<p>While there appears to be no resolution in sight for the general population of 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, common bipartisan ground <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/survey-finds-strong-support-for-dreamers/2017/09/24/df3c885c-a16f-11e7-b14f-f41773cd5a14_story.html">can be found</a> on the issue of Dreamers. A recent survey found that 86 percent of Americans support granting them amnesty.</p>
<p>The DREAM Act offers an opportunity to enact a permanent resolution for a group widely supported by the public. What is more, our research shows a policy that affirms our common humanity also increases economic growth without hurting U.S.-born workers.</p>
<p>This is a win-win for everyone, whether you care about social justice or worry about U.S. workers. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on Jan. 19, 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90603/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Hsin receives funding from the MacArthur Foundation and the William T. Grant Foundation.
</span></em></p>As lawmakers debate immigration policy in coming weeks, they should realize that giving immigrants who came to the US as children citizenship not only has broad political support but lifts the economy too.Amy Hsin, Associate Professor of Sociology, City University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/853572018-01-23T11:21:08Z2018-01-23T11:21:08ZSpanish use is steady or dropping in US despite high Latino immigration<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/el-uso-del-espanol-en-eeuu-no-aumenta-pese-a-la-inmigracion-latina-100072">Read in Spanish</a></em>.</p>
<p>Hidden just beneath the surface of the ongoing heated <a href="http://beta.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-cornelius-daca-immigration-20180117-story.html">debate about immigration in the United States</a> lurks an often unspoken concern: language. Specifically, whether immigration from Spanish-speaking countries threatens the English language’s dominance. </p>
<p>Language and immigration have long been politically linked in the U.S. When Farmers Branch, Texas, passed an English-only “requirement” in 2006, <a href="http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/farmers-branch-has-spent-five-years-and-millions-of-dollars-trying-to-keep-out-mexicans-is-it-time-for-a-truce-6426693">then-Mayor Tim O'Hare</a> justified it by saying that “we need to address illegal immigration in our city and we need to do it now.”</p>
<p>The Farmers Branch city council <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/farmers-branch/2017/11/29/farmers-branch-officials-repeal-ordinance-made-english-citys-official-language">voted unanimously to drop the controversial ordinance</a> last November, but <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/08/12/states-where-english-is-the-official-language/?utm_term=.0569b98fc0fd">31 states and hundreds of towns</a> in the United States still have local English-only or “official English” laws.</p>
<p>The perception that Latino immigration has led Spanish to sideline or even overtake English in the U.S. is widespread. After all, Spanish is the <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/183483/ranking-of-languages-spoken-at-home-in-the-us-in-2008/">second most dominant language in the country, after English</a>. It is spoken by <a href="http://potowski.org/content/espEEUU">48.6 million people</a>: 34.8 million Spanish-speakers age 5 and older of various national-origin backgrounds, 11 million undocumented Latin American immigrants and an estimated 2.8 million non-Latinos who use Spanish in the home. </p>
<p>Census data on U.S. demographic changes <a href="https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p25-1143.pdf">project</a> that by 2060 the Latino population in the U.S. – the group most likely to speak Spanish – will grow 115 percent, to 119 million. </p>
<p>But these figures don’t tell the whole story. As a linguist, I have studied Spanish-English bilingualism in Texas, California, Florida and beyond, and I can attest that Spanish is not taking over the United States. Far from it: Political fearmongering notwithstanding, Spanish actually holds a rather tenuous position in the country.</p>
<h2>From bilingual to monolingual</h2>
<p>How can the Latino population be growing rapidly while Spanish-speaking remains stable? The answer lies in oft-overlooked peculiarities of census data and in the particular linguistic history of the United States.</p>
<p>If one looks only at immigration patterns over the past half-century, it is true that the U.S. has been gaining Spanish-speakers. From 1965 to 2015, roughly half of all immigration has come from Latin American countries. This trend added some <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/09/28/modern-immigration-wave-brings-59-million-to-u-s-driving-population-growth-and-change-through-2065/ph_2015-09-28_immigration-through-2065-06/">30 million people</a>, most of whom came speaking Spanish, to the American populace. </p>
<p>But this is only half the story. While new immigrants bring Spanish with them, <a href="https://bilingualismucsd.wikispaces.com/-/Wiki%20Project/Team%2010/Latino+Immigration+and+Language+Assimilation">research shows</a> that their children tend to become bilinguals who <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/20/rise-in-english-proficiency-among-u-s-hispanics-is-driven-by-the-young/">overwhelmingly prefer English</a>. As a result, the same immigrants’ grandchildren likely speak English only.</p>
<p>Linguists call this phenomenon “<a href="http://paa2008.princeton.edu/papers/80685">the three-generation pattern</a>.” In essence, it means that non-English languages in the U.S. are lost by or during the third generation. </p>
<p>We can see this pattern playing out in <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/20/rise-in-english-proficiency-among-u-s-hispanics-is-driven-by-the-young/">data from the Pew Hispanic Center</a>. Surveys show that in 2000, 48 percent of Latino adults aged 50 to 68 spoke “only English” or “English very well,” and that 73 percent of Latino children aged 5 to 17 did. </p>
<p>By 2014, those numbers had jumped to 52 percent and 88 percent, respectively. In other words, the shift from Spanish to English is happening nationwide, both over time and between generations.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"925388593912320000"}"></div></p>
<h2>Why English dominates</h2>
<p>Language shift is not a naturally occurring phenomenon. Rather, it is a consequence of cultural forces that pressure speakers to give up one language to get another. These forces include restrictive language laws that formally <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-election-day-2016-proposition-58-bilingual-1478220414-htmlstory.html">prohibit the use of Spanish</a> in educational or government settings, as Farmers Branch, Texas, did for 11 years. </p>
<p>Schools also drive the three-generation pattern. Even though Latin American parents often speak to their U.S.-born children in Spanish, those children almost invariably attend English-only schools. </p>
<p>There, they learn that academic success is achieved in English. As a result, first-generation children <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3526379/">expand their vocabularies and literacy practices in English</a>, not in Spanish.</p>
<p>They may also encounter negative attitudes toward Spanish from teachers and peers. For example, in October 2017, a New Jersey high school teacher was caught on video <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/nyregion/speak-american-high-school.html">reprimanding three students for speaking Spanish</a>, encouraging them, instead, to speak “American.” That no such language exists is beside the point – her message was clear. </p>
<p>Social pressure to speak English is so great that Latino immigrant parents may notice resistance to using Spanish at home <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-latino-immigrants-english-fluency-20160422-story.html">as early as kindergarten</a>. A generation later, though grandparents may continue to use Spanish in the home, grandchildren will often respond to them in English. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202623/original/file-20180119-110117-wsvy9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202623/original/file-20180119-110117-wsvy9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202623/original/file-20180119-110117-wsvy9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202623/original/file-20180119-110117-wsvy9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202623/original/file-20180119-110117-wsvy9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202623/original/file-20180119-110117-wsvy9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202623/original/file-20180119-110117-wsvy9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The children of Latino immigrants often feel social pressure to speak English at school.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gosia Wozniacka/AP Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The numerous <a href="http://www.ethnicstudies.ucsd.edu/_files/miscellaneous/Bilingual%20Manual%20on%20HOw%20to%20raise%20a%20bilingual%20child.pdf">blogs, websites and guides</a> dedicated to helping Latino parents navigate this bilingual terrain indicate just how common language shift is.</p>
<p>Indeed, when I ask my own Latino students about when they speak what to whom, the answer is almost always the same: Spanish with elders, English with everyone else.</p>
<p>This pattern seems to hold in small towns and big cities, on the East Coast and on the West, and in towns with large and small Latino populations. From <a href="https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-122260252/spanish-language-shift-in-chicago">Chicago</a> to <a href="http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/380/380reading/heritagelangretention.pdf">Southern California</a>, children of Spanish-speaking immigrants become English-dominant. </p>
<p>The Spanish-to-English shift even occurs <a href="https://www.academia.edu/15765243/Multilingual_Miami_Trends_in_Sociolinguistic_Research">in Miami</a>, where over 65 percent of the population is Latino and where speaking Spanish has clear economic benefits. That’s why Miami <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article22190205.html">struggles to find enough Spanish-speaking teachers</a> to staff its public schools. </p>
<h2>English on the rise</h2>
<p>Spanish isn’t the only immigrant language that has struggled to keep a foothold in the U.S. Germans, Italians, Poles and Swedes went through <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/05/what-is-the-future-of-spanish-in-the-united-states/">similar language shifts</a> in the 19th and 20th centuries. These languages, too, were sometimes seen as a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/language-in-immigrant-america/587C8A3284F62BF298D58680511386B2#fndtn-information">threat to American identity</a> in their time. </p>
<p>Then as now, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-coca-cola-super-bowl-ad-stirs-controversy-20140203-story.html">American anxiety</a> about the role of English in U.S. society was totally unfounded. In the roughly 150,000-year history of human language, there has never been a more secure tongue than English. </p>
<p>More people worldwide <a href="https://qz.com/444456/the-most-useful-foreign-languages-an-english-speaker-can-learn-and-why/">do speak Mandarin and Spanish as their first language</a>. But with some <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/266808/the-most-spoken-languages-worldwide/">400 million first language speakers and more than 500 million adoptive English speakers</a>, English has a global standing enjoyed by none of the roughly <a href="https://www.ethnologue.com/browse/names">6,000 other languages spoken worldwide</a>. It has been that way for about half a century. </p>
<p>If Latino immigration declines markedly in the U.S., language shift may actually lead Spanish to disappear across America. English, on the other hand, isn’t going anywhere fast.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85357/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phillip M. Carter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Spanish is not overtaking English in the US, despite political fearmongering. In fact, due to the ‘three-generation pattern,’ Spanish speaking in immigrant families tends to decline over time.Phillip M. Carter, Associate Professor of Linguistics, Florida International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/903772018-01-19T11:41:56Z2018-01-19T11:41:56Z‘Dreamers’ could give US economy – and even American workers – a boost<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202535/original/file-20180119-80203-1iuvh1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators chant slogans during an immigration rally in support of DACA.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Earlier this month, <a href="http://kxan.com/2017/12/02/daca-summit-gives-dreamers-hope-encouragement/">hopes were high</a> that a bipartisan deal could be reached to resolve the fate of the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/dreamers-24037">Dreamers</a>,” the millions of undocumented youth who were brought to the U.S. as children. </p>
<p>Those hopes <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/11/politics/daca-deal-obstacles-flake-white-house/index.html">all but vanished</a> on Jan. 11 as President Donald Trump aligned himself with hard-line anti-immigration advocates within the GOP and struck down bipartisan attempts to reach a resolution.</p>
<p>As we enter the final hours before a potential government shutdown, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/us/politics/government-shutdown-house-vote.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news">many Democrats are insisting</a> that any short-term funding agreement must include a resolution for Dreamers. </p>
<p><a href="https://cis.org/Immigration-Hurting-US-Worker">One of the arguments</a> advanced by those who oppose giving them citizenship is that doing so would hurt native-born workers and be a drain on the U.S. economy. My own research shows the exact opposite is true. </p>
<h2>Lives in limbo</h2>
<p>All in all, about <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/01/18/there-3-5-m-dreamers-and-most-may-face-nightmare/1042134001/">3.6 million immigrants</a> living in the U.S. entered the country as children. Without options for legal residency, their lives hang in the balance. </p>
<p>To address this problem, the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/web-video/vault-president-barack-obama-signs-daca">Obama administration created</a> the <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/consideration-deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-daca">Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals</a> program in 2012. <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/deferred-action-for-childhood-arrivals-daca-33587">DACA</a> gave <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/daca-four-participation-deferred-action-program-and-impacts-recipients">almost 800,000 of them</a> temporary legal work permits and reprieve from deportation. Although his successor terminated the program in September, this month a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/10/576963434/federal-judge-temporarily-blocks-trumps-decision-to-end-daca">federal court halted that process</a>, allowing current recipients the ability to renew their status. </p>
<p>Any cause for celebration, however, was short-lived as the Department of Justice immediately responded by asking the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling. The Supreme Court has not yet announced a decision. In the meantime, the future of DACA recipients remains uncertain.</p>
<p>Today, the best hope for a permanent fix for the Dreamers rests on bipartisan efforts to enact the 2017 DREAM Act – for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors – which would extend pathways to citizenship to undocumented youth who entered the United States as children, graduated from high school and have no criminal record. A version of the act was <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/349285-graham-durbin-call-for-action-on-dream-act-by-end-of-september">first introduced</a> in 2001.</p>
<p>The debate surrounding the DREAM Act is often framed around two seemingly irreconcilable views. </p>
<p>On one side, <a href="http://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a14473133/kamala-harris-dream-act-op-ed">immigration activists advocate</a> for legalization based on pleas to our common humanity. These Dreamers, after all, were raised and educated in the United States. They are American in every sense but legally. </p>
<p>On the other, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/08/25/time-for-trump-to-keep-his-promises-daca-is-unconstitutional-and-bad-for-american-workers.html">critics</a> contend that legalization will come at a cost to U.S.-born workers, and their well-being should be prioritized. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202536/original/file-20180119-80171-1b2jixd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202536/original/file-20180119-80171-1b2jixd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202536/original/file-20180119-80171-1b2jixd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202536/original/file-20180119-80171-1b2jixd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202536/original/file-20180119-80171-1b2jixd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202536/original/file-20180119-80171-1b2jixd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202536/original/file-20180119-80171-1b2jixd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many immigrant advocates consider the DREAM Act the best hope for a permanent fix.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Lynne Sladky</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Impact of Dreamer citizenship on wages</h2>
<p>My <a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp11281.pdf">research</a> with economists Ryan Edwards and Francesc Ortega estimated the economic impact of the 2017 DREAM Act if it were to become law. About 2.1 million of the undocumented youths <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/mpi-estimates-number-dreamers-potentially-eligible-benefit-under-different-legalization">would likely be eligible</a> to become citizens based on its age and educational requirements. </p>
<p>Our research showed that immigrants given permanent legal work permits under the DREAM Act would not compete with low-skilled U.S.-born workers because only those with at least a high school degree are eligible for legalization. The act also encourages college attendance by making it one of the conditions for attaining legal residency. </p>
<p>We also found that the act would have no significant effect on the wages of U.S.-born workers regardless of education level because Dreamers make up such a small fraction of the labor force. U.S.-born college graduates and high school dropouts would experience no change in wages. Those with some college may experience small declines of at most 0.2 percent a year, while high school graduates would actually experience wage increases of a similar magnitude.</p>
<p>For the legalized immigrants, however, the benefits would be substantial. For example, legalized immigrants with some college education would see wages increase by about 15 percent, driven by expansions in employment opportunities due to legalization and by the educational gains that the DREAM Act encourages.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202539/original/file-20180119-80171-wjvwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202539/original/file-20180119-80171-wjvwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202539/original/file-20180119-80171-wjvwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202539/original/file-20180119-80171-wjvwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202539/original/file-20180119-80171-wjvwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202539/original/file-20180119-80171-wjvwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202539/original/file-20180119-80171-wjvwfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Trump’s termination of DACA has put the lives of Dreamers like Faride Cuevas, second from right, in limbo.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Broader economic benefits</h2>
<p>The DREAM Act also promotes <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-dreamers-and-green-card-lottery-winners-strengthen-the-us-economy-82571">overall economic growth</a> by increasing the productivity of legalized workers and expanding the tax base. </p>
<p>Lacking legal work options, Dreamers <a href="https://www.rsfjournal.org/doi/pdf/10.7758/RSF.2017.3.4.06">tend to be overqualified</a> for the jobs they hold. My ongoing work with sociologist Holly Reed shows that the undocumented youth who make it to college are more motivated and academically prepared compared with their U.S.-born peers. This is at least in part because they had to overcome greater odds to attend college. </p>
<p>We find that they are also more likely than their native-born peers to graduate college with a degree. Yet despite being highly motivated and accomplished, undocumented college graduates are employed in jobs that are not commensurate with their education level, according to sociologist <a href="https://www.rsfjournal.org/doi/pdf/10.7758/RSF.2017.3.4.06">Esther Cho</a>. With legal work options, they will be able to find jobs that match their skills and qualifications, making them more productive. </p>
<p>Legalization also <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/08/30/science.aan5893">improves the mental health</a> of immigrants by <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-daca-affected-the-mental-health-of-undocumented-young-adults-83341">removing the social stigma</a> of being labeled a criminal and the looming threat of arrest and deportation. </p>
<p>From an economic standpoint, healthier and happier workers also make for a more productive workforce.</p>
<p>Overall, we estimate that the increases in productivity under the DREAM Act would raise the United States GDP by US$15.2 billion and significantly increase tax revenue.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202537/original/file-20180119-80194-16tge4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202537/original/file-20180119-80194-16tge4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202537/original/file-20180119-80194-16tge4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202537/original/file-20180119-80194-16tge4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202537/original/file-20180119-80194-16tge4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202537/original/file-20180119-80194-16tge4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202537/original/file-20180119-80194-16tge4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham have been leading recent efforts to pass bipartisan immigration reform.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Everyone can win</h2>
<p>The U.S. continues to grapple with how to incorporate the general population of nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the country. </p>
<p>The inability of the Trump administration and lawmakers from both parties to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/17/trump-rejects-horrible-bipartisan-immigration-plan-reuters.html">find common ground</a> is emblematic of just how <a href="http://news.gallup.com/poll/206681/worry-illegal-immigration-steady.aspx">deeply divided</a> Americans are between those who want to send most of them home and others who favor a path toward citizenship for many if not most of them. </p>
<p>While there appears to be no resolution in sight for the general population of 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, common bipartisan ground <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/survey-finds-strong-support-for-dreamers/2017/09/24/df3c885c-a16f-11e7-b14f-f41773cd5a14_story.html">can be found</a> on the issue of Dreamers. A recent survey found that 86 percent of Americans support granting them amnesty.</p>
<p>The DREAM Act offers an opportunity to enact a permanent resolution for a group widely supported by the public. What is more, our research shows a policy that affirms our common humanity also increases economic growth without hurting U.S.-born workers. </p>
<p>This is a win-win for everyone, whether you care about social justice or worry about U.S. workers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90377/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Hsin receives funding from the MacArthur Foundation and the William T. Grant Foundation.</span></em></p>While comprehensive immigration reform may be out of reach, giving immigrants who came to the US as children citizenship not only has broad political support but makes economic sense too.Amy Hsin, Associate Professor of Sociology, City University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/892792017-12-19T01:39:48Z2017-12-19T01:39:48ZWhy Trump’s plan to forbid spouses of H-1B visa holders to work is a bad idea<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199824/original/file-20171219-27595-v5b083.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. immigration law has a complicated history with keeping families together. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Brian Snyder</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Dec. 14, the Trump administration announced a <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=201710&RIN=1615-AC15.">regulatory change</a> that would strip spouses of high-skilled foreign workers of the right to work in the United States. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/12/15/White-House-exploring-an-end-to-H-4-visa-program-for-spouses-of-H-1B-visa-holders/4811513351165/">apparent aim</a> is to promote Trump’s “Buy American, Hire American” <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-executive-order-buy-american-hire-american/">executive order</a> issued in April. It’s also part of efforts to <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/archive/uscis-will-temporarily-suspend-premium-processing-all-h-1b-petitions">scale back</a> the H-1B visa program, which allows workers to bring spouses and children under H-4 visas. </p>
<p>Besides likely having a negative impact on industries that use H-1B visas, such as information technology, software development and finance, my own research shows that it will also, intentionally or not, disproportionately harm women. </p>
<h2>Immigration policy and families</h2>
<p>There is no shortage of opinions about the merits and drawbacks of the H-1B program. </p>
<p>Critics argue that the program has been abused by companies that seek to <a href="https://theconversation.com/candidates-plans-to-change-controversial-h-1b-guestworker-program-highlight-need-for-an-overhaul-55482">replace</a> American workers or pay them <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w23153">lower wages</a>. Advocates, meanwhile, point out that foreign workers increase <a href="http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/%7Eanno/Papers/EDQ_on_immigrants_2002.pdf">innovation</a> and bring in <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/h-1b-visas-and-the-stem-shortage/">much-needed</a> high-skilled labor. </p>
<p>But there is another consideration left out of this debate: how the program directly affects the lives of the workers and their families. </p>
<p>Historically, family reunification has played a contentious role in U.S. immigration policy. Starting with the <a href="http://library.uwb.edu/Static/USimmigration/1875_page_law.html">Page Law of 1875</a> and the <a href="http://library.uwb.edu/Static/USimmigration/1882_chinese_exclusion_act.html">Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882</a>, women (predominately from Asia) were barred from migrating either as spouses or on their own. These laws were responsible for creating “bachelor societies” of immigrant men and <a href="http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2174&context=facpubs">limited</a> the establishment of permanent Asian communities in the United States. </p>
<p>Changes to immigration <a href="http://library.uwb.edu/Static/USimmigration/1943_magnuson_act.html">law</a> in the mid-20th century began to recognize the need for family migration. The <a href="http://library.uwb.edu/Static/USimmigration/1965_immigration_and_nationality_act.html">Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965</a> further reversed earlier policy by giving naturalized citizens and legal permanent residents the power to sponsor family members and made reunification a weighted factor for immigration consideration. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/101st-congress/senate-bill/358">1990 law</a> opened new avenues for family-based migration, creating the H-1B as a “temporary nonimmigrant visa” that prioritized highly skilled workers whose labor was needed for “<a href="https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-workers/h-1b-specialty-occupations-dod-cooperative-research-and-development-project-workers-and-fashion-models">specialized and complex</a>” jobs. </p>
<p>The visa is typically issued for three to six years to employers to hire a foreign worker. If employers choose to sponsor them, visa holders can then apply for permanent residency. </p>
<p>It also created the H-4 family reunification visa. Even though the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services <a href="https://www.computerworld.com/article/3050365/it-careers/how-many-h-1b-workers-are-male-us-wont-say.html">doesn’t</a> release gender data, some <a href="https://www.computerworld.com/article/3050365/it-careers/how-many-h-1b-workers-are-male-us-wont-say.html">estimate</a> that 85 percent of H-1Bs go to men. It is safe to presume that women make up the majority of H-4 spousal visas. </p>
<p>They are among the 22 “<a href="https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-nonimmigrant-workers">nonimmigrant</a>” visa categories that have family reunification provisions, but, like most of them, come with work restrictions. </p>
<h2>The impact of work restrictions</h2>
<p>Work authorization for the spouses of H-1B visa holders came into the spotlight in 2015. </p>
<p>The Obama administration issued an <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/news/dhs-extends-eligibility-employment-authorization-certain-h-4-dependent-spouses-h-1b-nonimmigrants-seeking-employment-based-lawful-permanent-residence">executive order</a> that year that allowed H-4 visa holders who were already in the process of applying for lawful permanent residency to also apply for employment authorization. Prior to the order, H-4 holders were unable to work or obtain a social security number.</p>
<p>The work authorization document is conditional, however. If the possessor’s spouse loses his H-1B visa, then the H-4 visa holder would also lose her authorization to work in the U.S. </p>
<p>I conducted a multi-year <a href="http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/BHAATH.html">study</a> of H-1B and H-4 visa holders that ended just after President Barack Obama’s 2015 order. My findings clearly showed the long-lasting negative effects of these work restrictions and how important work authorization is for immigrant families.</p>
<p>Even though spouses of H-1B workers tend to be <a href="https://qz.com/797831/the-h4-visa-and-the-desperation-of-indian-housewives-in-america/">highly educated</a>, often in STEM fields, after coming to the U.S. they effectively became housewives. Women are unable to contribute to the household financially and become dependent on their husbands. They cannot apply for changes in their immigration status without going through the primary visa holder. </p>
<p>This means that if an H-4 visa holder were to experience domestic violence, for example, she would be unable to leave without putting her visa status in <a href="https://law.ubalt.edu/centers/caf/pdf/Sabrina%20Balgamwalla.pdf">jeopardy</a>. </p>
<p>While Citizenship and Immigration Services did issue a <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Laws/Memoranda/2016/2016-0308_PM-602-0130_Eligibility_for_Employment_Authorization_for_Battered_Spouses_of_Certain_Nonimmigrants.pdf">memorandum</a> in 2016 granting work authorization to abused spouses of nonimmigrants under the Violence Against Women Act, victims must have <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/forms/employment-authorization-certain-abused-nonimmigrant-spouses">proof</a> of abuse, such as police reports, court records or reports from social service agencies. As advocates have <a href="https://vawnet.org/sites/default/files/materials/files/2016-09/AR_Immigrant.pdf">shown</a>, this can be difficult for immigrant women to obtain, and many would rather <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/03/21/520841332/fear-of-deportation-spurs-4-women-to-drop-domestic-abuse-cases-in-denver">drop domestic violence</a> cases than risk deportation.</p>
<p>In cases where an H-1B worker loses his job or experiences something worse, the rest of the family could be deported. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199819/original/file-20171219-27538-1nfr2i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199819/original/file-20171219-27538-1nfr2i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199819/original/file-20171219-27538-1nfr2i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199819/original/file-20171219-27538-1nfr2i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199819/original/file-20171219-27538-1nfr2i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199819/original/file-20171219-27538-1nfr2i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199819/original/file-20171219-27538-1nfr2i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sunayana Dumala was denied entry into the U.S. after attending the funeral in India of her husband, an H-1B worker who was murdered.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Orlin Wagner</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This point was driven home dramatically in the case of Sunayana Dumala, the widow of H-1B worker Srinivas Kuchibhotla, who was <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/adam-purinton-shooting-olathe-kansas/">murdered</a> in Kansas by a white supremacist in February. After she returned to India for Kuchibhotla’s funeral, she was barred from reentering the U.S. since her deceased husband’s visa was no longer valid. Dumala’s state congressman intervened personally to help obtain her temporary work authorization and to apply for her own H-1B visa or a “U” visa, usually reserved for immigrant victims of crime. </p>
<p>Her case, which had the rare aid of a member of Congress, brings home the precariousness that dependents of temporary immigrant workers face.</p>
<p>Even in less horrific cases, the forced hiatus from the workplace that women face on the H-4 hurts their long-term career prospects. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/magazine/the-opt-out-generation-wants-back-in.html?pagewanted=all">Research</a> has shown women who leave or are pushed out of the workforce wherever they are in the world have a much harder time reentering the job market.</p>
<p>This issue is compounded by the fact that H-4 holders must find an employer to sponsor them on an H-1B, which are already in short supply, or <a href="http://www.timesnownews.com/international/article/indian-it-professionals-us-green-cards-backlogs-h-1b-visas-techies-immigration/111499">wait</a> potentially seven to 10 years until they become permanent residents to restart their careers. </p>
<p>H-4 women face a triple burden if they are able to start working again, particularly in technology: race, gender and long gaps in their resumes. </p>
<h2>Welcome relief</h2>
<p>Considering the negative impacts of H-4 work restrictions, the Obama-era rule change granting work authorization was <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/eastside/high-tech-workers-spouses-welcome-new-immigration-rules/">welcome relief</a> for tens of thousands of dependent spouses. </p>
<p>For women who have been stymied at home, the chance to join the workforce is important both financially and <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/10/technology/h4-work-permits-trump/index.html">psychologically</a>, particularly in areas where H-1B workers are concentrated such as Silicon Valley, Seattle and New York. </p>
<p>For example, having two incomes offsets the high cost of living in regions where H-1B workers <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2015/04/02/the-h-1b-visa-race-continues-which-regions-received-the-most/">are concentrated</a>. In addition, <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2013/sdn1310.pdf">women’s participation</a> in the workforce <a href="http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2015/the-case-for-gender-equality/">can translate</a> into greater gender equity at home.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there has already been backlash to this expansion of the temporary workforce, including via a <a href="http://www.immigration.com/sites/default/files/SaveJobs-Lawsuit.pdf">lawsuit</a> to halt H-4 work authorization. Although that suit was initially rejected, now the Trump administration’s planned rule change revives the issue. </p>
<h2>What now</h2>
<p>As my research has shown, when women are given opportunities to grow their careers and become economically productive, they are more likely to stay in the U.S.</p>
<p>Losing talented workers who have already invested significant time and money (workers pay social security and other taxes regardless of immigration status) in the U.S. will deal a blow to our standing as the locus of technological innovation. There has already been a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-17/h-1b-applications-drop-as-u-s-employers-anticipate-reforms">drop</a> in the numbers of H-1B applications received in 2017 as foreign workers grow wary of the current political climate in the U.S. This latest restriction will only create more hesitation.</p>
<p>The H-1B program is undoubtedly in need of reform. Obama’s 2015 executive actions on immigration were far from perfect and left many problems unresolved, such as what will happen to children of H-1B workers who “age out” of their dependent visas after they turn 21 years old. Many have spent the majority of their childhoods in the U.S. but still are not permanent residents. They are left in limbo and, like the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-dreamers-and-green-card-lottery-winners-strengthen-the-us-economy-82571">Dreamers</a>,” potentially face the prospect of <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/returning-to-india/why-children-of-h-1b-workers-may-now-have-to-leave-america/articleshow/61166125.cms">returning</a> to countries that they have never known. </p>
<p>Withdrawing work authorization for spouses who have been living in the U.S. for more than half a decade is a step in the wrong direction. Immigration reform needs more compassion, not less.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89279/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Bhatt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar explains why the president’s plan to overturn his predecessor’s rule would be a big mistake and disproportionately harm women.Amy Bhatt, Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/846452017-09-27T00:54:26Z2017-09-27T00:54:26ZThe surprising connection between ‘take a knee’ protests and Citizens United<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187646/original/file-20170926-17379-1nbcljc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones joined his team in taking a knee before a game on Sept. 25.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Matt York</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruling that some fear <a href="http://time.com/4922542/democrats-citizen-united/">is destroying American democracy</a>, may also be showing us how to heal it. </p>
<p>The most recent example of this is the reaction to President Donald Trump’s comments suggesting that sports owners <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/24/sports/nfl-trump-anthem-protests.html">should fire players</a> who kneel during the national anthem. As the president does so often, he placed business leaders in the difficult position of deciding whether to speak out at the risk of alienating customers and courting further controversy. </p>
<p>In this case, many league officials and owners chose to do just that, <a href="https://twitter.com/NFLprguy/status/911580084141772801/photo/1">labeling</a> Trump’s words “divisive” and <a href="https://twitter.com/WarriorsPR/status/911671456928382976/photo/1">defending their players’ right</a> to “express themselves freely on matters important to them.” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/09/25/cowboys-players-take-a-knee-with-owner-jerry-jones-before-standing-for-anthem/?utm_term=.d00ae10138dc">Some owners</a> “took a knee” alongside their players. </p>
<p>While corporate speech is often assumed to favor only conservative causes, my research on attorney advertising reveals the extent to which free speech rights for companies <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2445771">also advances</a> causes important to liberals. </p>
<p>I would argue that Citizens United – a Supreme Court opinion that has produced bitterly partisan reactions – ironically offers a pluralistic vision of corporate speech as well as a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6233137937069871624">full-throated defense</a> of the kind of political speech <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-corporate-ceos-found-their-political-voice-83127">we are now witnessing</a> from business leaders. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187671/original/file-20170926-10570-1sisnqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187671/original/file-20170926-10570-1sisnqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187671/original/file-20170926-10570-1sisnqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187671/original/file-20170926-10570-1sisnqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187671/original/file-20170926-10570-1sisnqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187671/original/file-20170926-10570-1sisnqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187671/original/file-20170926-10570-1sisnqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, center, resigned from Trump’s manufacturing council because of the president’s muted reaction to the violence in Charlottesville, Va. The council soon disbanded after that.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Speaking out in the age of Trump</h2>
<p>Whether to speak out when Trump takes a position that is at odds with the rights of their employees or their own or company’s values has become a fundamental dilemma for many business leaders in the Trump era. </p>
<p>Many have done so on <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/08/14/ken-frazier-trump-charlottesville-response/">Charlottesville</a>, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/01/elon-musk-quits-donald-trumps-advisory-councils-paris-accord/">climate change</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/sundarpichai/status/890247543686397952">transgender service in the military</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/09/06/amazon-and-microsoft-are-supporting-a-15-state-lawsuit-to-protect-daca/?utm_term=.988cbc9f1414">Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals</a>. Others have <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/corporate-americas-awkward-embrace-of-trump-will-continue">stayed silent</a>, seeming to support the notion that inserting themselves into political controversies would be to step out of bounds. </p>
<p>In this view, business should be separate from politics, and corporations should leave political discourse to private citizens. But for better or worse, our system protects business leaders speaking up. And the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United describes why it’s so important. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187668/original/file-20170926-10570-6opbe0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187668/original/file-20170926-10570-6opbe0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187668/original/file-20170926-10570-6opbe0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187668/original/file-20170926-10570-6opbe0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187668/original/file-20170926-10570-6opbe0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187668/original/file-20170926-10570-6opbe0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187668/original/file-20170926-10570-6opbe0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">They may not be people, but they’re made up of them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Toby Talbot</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Citizens United, the left’s bete noir</h2>
<p>In 2010, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6233137937069871624">Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission</a> overturned a law that limited corporate finance of certain political ads on First Amendment grounds. The reaction from liberals and those who favor limits on campaign finance was <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2010/02/25/the-devastating-decision/">fierce</a>.</p>
<p>President Barack Obama famously <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deGg41IiWwU">criticized</a> the opinion during a <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/State_of_the_Union/state-of-the-union-2010-president-obama-speech-transcript/story?id=9678572">State of the Union address</a>, with the justices who issued the ruling sitting a few feet away:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>According to a Time magazine survey of law professors, the opinion ranks among <a href="http://time.com/4056051/worst-supreme-court-decisions/">the worst since 1960</a>.</p>
<p>And yet, like any political lightning rod, Citizens United is both less and more than it seems. </p>
<p>Constitutional scholar Justin Levitt <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41308528?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">characterized</a> the opinion as an incremental change from previous law, which offered corporations no shortage of options for political influence. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1740-1461.2012.01265.x">Another study</a> found that companies spent more on politics after Citizens United but it ultimately hurt shareholders – it was essentially a form of corporate waste. Spending additional corporate dollars on campaigns awash in advertising may not produce much of <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjNg9CAssPWAhVBXWMKHVp8D_8QFggmMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpeople.umass.edu%2Fschaffne%2Flaraja_schaffner_spendingbans.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGCK5ryfKuvJ9A-bvaLmbV7efoUyA">a return</a> on investment.</p>
<p>Beyond its legal impact, Citizens United offered a vision of democracy that embraces the unique and important role that business leaders play in political discourse. In other words, exactly what we’ve seen when business leaders stand up to Trump.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/E2h8ujX6T0A?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Business leaders bridging divides</h2>
<p>Citizens United stands in part for the idea that the First Amendment provides strong protection for political speech, even if it originates from a company. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2h8ujX6T0A">Corporations may not be people</a>, but, to paraphrase the movie “Soylent Green,” they are <a href="https://vimeo.com/193955387">made of people</a>. </p>
<p>In this view, corporations are groups of people on par with labor unions or nonprofits, and their joint viewpoints are deserving of protection.</p>
<p>At a time of deep partisan division, business leaders may be the rare voice deemed credible across the political spectrum. Small businesses are among the <a href="http://news.gallup.com/poll/212840/americans-confidence-institutions-edges.aspx">few remaining institutions</a> that inspire a high level of confidence from both Republicans and Democrats. Tech companies also still enjoy <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/poll-little-confidence-major-american-institutions-n697931">high levels</a> of trust. Importantly, among those who are losing confidence in the “system,” business is seen as <a href="https://www.edelman.com/global-results/">the most trusted</a> institution.</p>
<p>To this, one might respond, why ruin a good thing? Perhaps business leaders should lie low and preserve their reputation. But it is a mistake to assume that any statements in opposition to Trump are themselves divisive. </p>
<p>In this regard, even diluted corporate rhetoric offers the comparative benefit of articulating a few things that Americans have in common. After Charlottesville, the CEO of Campbell Soup – a symbol of mainstream values if there ever was one – <a href="https://www.campbellsoupcompany.com/newsroom/press-releases/campbell-ceo-resigns-from-presidents-manufacturing-jobs-initiative/">issued a statement</a> that “racism and murder are unequivocally reprehensible.” It may not be revolutionary, but at least it’s a point upon which virtually every American can agree. </p>
<p>Citizens United also argued that corporations have a unique viewpoint in the <a href="http://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3484&context=caselrev">marketplace of ideas</a>. In this conception of speech, corporate voices are worth protecting because voters find them valuable or important. As the Supreme Court <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6233137937069871624">explained</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“On certain topics corporations may possess valuable expertise, leaving them the best equipped to point out errors or fallacies in speech of all sorts, including the speech of candidates and elected officials.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In this vein, corporations represent a credible source of information and context on policy matters.</p>
<p>The Trump administration’s decision to terminate DACA is often invoked as a moral issue. However, in a lawsuit against the administration, tech leaders explained that it was also a business issue, describing how its termination will affect their ability to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/09/06/amazon-and-microsoft-are-supporting-a-15-state-lawsuit-to-protect-daca/?utm_term=.fb7cf1118ac6">recruit and retain top talent</a>. Likewise, when NFL owners and coaches defend their players, it’s an opportunity to provide context for how the kneeling controversy relates to racial justice.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187667/original/file-20170926-31238-c81frg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187667/original/file-20170926-31238-c81frg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187667/original/file-20170926-31238-c81frg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187667/original/file-20170926-31238-c81frg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187667/original/file-20170926-31238-c81frg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187667/original/file-20170926-31238-c81frg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187667/original/file-20170926-31238-c81frg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Colin Kaepernick (7) began taking a knee during the national anthem last year to protest police brutality.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Gluskoter/AP Images for Panini</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>For business leaders, it’s personal</h2>
<p>To be sure, Citizens United has had some of the negative impact liberals feared. In particular, <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/685691">one study</a> estimated that corporate spending following Citizens United measurably improved Republican prospects in state legislatures. </p>
<p>When corporations have the option to engage in unlimited spending, it gives them a <a href="http://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/gslr27&section=43">louder voice</a> than others in the electoral process.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the kind of statements we’ve heard from NFL and NBA team owners offers a counterpoint to the kind of corporate speech most feared by commentators following Citizens United – that of faceless corporations pouring money into elections in service of their “greedy ends.” Instead, these statements have an intensely personal character. They show leaders sharing their own personal experiences and how those experiences are reflected in the organizations they run.</p>
<p>When NFL team owner Shahid Khan <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2017/09/24/shahid-khan-the-jaguars-owner-who-stood-with-his-team-has-long-espoused-the-american-dream/?utm_term=.40c47b159691">linked arms</a> with his players during the national anthem before a game, it sent a symbolic message to his players – and to everyone watching – about his vision of an inclusive America that honors diversity “in many forms – race, faith, our views and our goals.” </p>
<p>It may not be the kind of corporate speech that we imagined. But it’s exactly what we need.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84645/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth C. Tippett made a contribution to the Hillary Clinton campaign.</span></em></p>Team owners’ defense of their players ‘taking a knee’ during the national anthem shows the vital role business leaders play in political discourse – one championed by Citizens United.Elizabeth C. Tippett, Assistant Professor, School of Law, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/825712017-09-15T10:22:07Z2017-09-15T10:22:07ZHow ‘Dreamers’ and green card lottery winners strengthen the US economy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186089/original/file-20170914-8971-19cpt63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The DACA program's inherent diversity is what makes it a boon for the U.S. economy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>While President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans have long decried illegal immigration and proposed remedies like <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37243269">the wall</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/02/21/trumps-mass-deportations-have-arrived-but-will-republicans-pay-for-them/">mass deportations</a>, they have <a href="https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/still-proimmigration-party">traditionally favored</a> the legal kind, partly because their <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/23/gop-must-embrace-pro-immigration-policy-big-donors/">business donors demand it</a>. </p>
<p>That seems to have changed. </p>
<p>In August, the president <a href="http://time.com/4885453/donald-trump-legal-immigration-bill/">publicly backed</a> a GOP bill to slash the number of “green cards” awarded each year in half and move the U.S. to a merit-based immigration system.</p>
<p>More recently, he <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration/trump-ends-dreamer-immigration-program-places-onus-on-congress-idUSKCN1BG0H2">ended an Obama-era program</a> that protected the so-called dreamers – children of immigrants who crossed the border illegally – from deportation. The fate of the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA) program <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-daca-deal-0915-story.html">remains in limbo</a>, however, and the president <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/14/us/trump-schumer-pelosi-daca.html">is negotiating</a> with Democrats on a deal to save it.</p>
<p>As someone who researches the impact of immigration on workers, I believe the GOP plan and ending DACA would both be big mistakes, in part because they’ll make the pool of immigrants in the U.S. much less diverse. </p>
<h2>A new system of legal immigration</h2>
<p>One of the arguments made to support curbs on immigration is that new arrivals hurt native-born American workers and the economy at large. But in fact, the more homogenous and similar immigrants are to U.S.-born workers, the greater the odds they’ll do just that.</p>
<p>In contrast, immigrants who come from diverse backgrounds with a range of skills – such as the 800,000 dreamers – tend to produce greater economic benefits. That may be one reason <a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/09/05/daca-has-made-sense-to-me-republican-lawmakers-pledge-to-support-daca-over-trump/">at least some Republicans</a> and <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/05/poll-trump-deporting-daca-dreamers-242343">most Americans</a> are in favor of keeping DACA. </p>
<p>Currently, the U.S. receives a lot of immigrants without a college degree or with imperfect English. About half of immigrants fit either description.</p>
<p></p><hr><p></p>
<p><iframe id="y6110" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/y6110/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p></p><hr><p></p>
<p>The legislation proposed earlier this summer – the <a href="http://static.politico.com/fd/af/3eebc635479892982f81bdfe3fa2/raise-act.pdf">Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act</a> – would exclude most such workers and would reduce the total number of green cards awarding permanent legal U.S. residence to just over 500,000 from more than one million today. </p>
<p>More importantly, it would change who gets a leg up when applying for a green card. Currently, family of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, including siblings and adult children, are able to apply. The new system would limit that to minor children and spouses. </p>
<p>It would also end the <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/greencard/diversity-visa">green card lottery</a>, known more formally as the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, which awards <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Lawful_Permanent_Residents_2015.pdf">50,000</a> green cards a year to people from countries with low rates of immigration to the U.S. </p>
<p>Instead, the bill would create a point-based system like those used in countries such as the U.K. and Australia that use factors such as English ability, education and job offers to rank applicants. However, <a href="http://econofact.org/should-immigrants-be-admitted-to-the-united-states-based-on-merit">it would be stricter</a> than point systems used in those countries, which admit immigrants through other programs as well. </p>
<p>In essence, the plan would make the pool of immigrants more homogeneous and dramatically smaller in number, mirroring the misguided <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=H__52jKXgBwC&pg=PP1&dq=Mae+M.+Ngai&ei=7E3ySouONpX0zASruM3bAw#v=onepage&q&f=false">origin-based restrictions from the 1920s</a>.</p>
<h2>Value in diversity</h2>
<p>While all of these changes – including <a href="http://voxeu.org/article/global-view-cross-border-migration">cutting the overall volume</a> of immigration and reducing immigrant diversity – will make U.S. workers worse off, the English requirement is likely to be particularly harmful to U.S. workers, especially low-skilled ones. </p>
<p>Indeed, <a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Eethang/ImmNat.pdf">I have found</a> the relative fluency of U.S.-born workers is what keeps them from being harmed from labor market competition from immigrants. </p>
<p>The reason for this is the following. Essentially, immigrants with imperfect English skills tend to specialize in jobs that are less “communication-intensive,” such as manual labor. Americans fluent in the language, on the other hand, tend to take on higher-paying, communication-intensive jobs that are out of reach of those without a strong grasp of English. In other words, these groups aren’t likely to compete for the same jobs, making them more complementary than adversarial.</p>
<p>In contrast, when new immigrants are more fluent in English, as the Trump-backed proposal would encourage, the types of occupations they are qualified for are almost identical to those of American workers. Thus, insisting on strong English skills as a condition of coming to America is likely to increase labor market competition and suppress wages. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186090/original/file-20170914-8971-yjj0hk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186090/original/file-20170914-8971-yjj0hk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186090/original/file-20170914-8971-yjj0hk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186090/original/file-20170914-8971-yjj0hk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186090/original/file-20170914-8971-yjj0hk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186090/original/file-20170914-8971-yjj0hk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186090/original/file-20170914-8971-yjj0hk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The main registry building on Ellis Island is shown in this 1905 photo. It was once the nation’s gateway for millions of immigrants.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Immigration that helps</h2>
<p>Immigration that emphasizes diversity, rather than merely merit, tends to attract more people who specialize in occupations uncommon among U.S.-born workers. And, in fact, this is the key source of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/want-a-stronger-economy-give-immigrants-a-warm-welcome-73264">well-known economic benefits of immigration</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://giovanniperi.ucdavis.edu/uploads/5/6/8/2/56826033/peri_sparber_task_specialization_immigration_2010.pdf">Studies</a> by economists Giovanni Peri and Chad Sparber, for example, show this tendency toward job specialization is a key reason the large volume of low-skill immigration does not drive down incomes of Americans. Other <a href="http://giovanniperi.ucdavis.edu/uploads/5/6/8/2/56826033/ottaviano_peri_economic_value_of_cultural_diversity_2006.pdf">research</a> shows that simply encouraging immigration from diverse origins lifts wages. </p>
<p>There are also other ways reducing the number of less-educated immigrants would likely harm the economy. For example, such migrants make up around a third of the maids and janitors in the U.S., 80 percent of whom say they are not fluent in English. <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/16/immigrants-dont-make-up-a-majority-of-workers-in-any-u-s-industry/">Most of these workers</a> are here through legal means. The RAISE Act’s lower quotas and emphasis on English and other skills would make it harder to fill those jobs with immigrants, and thus mean more Americans would be diverted from higher-paid, more productive tasks into cleaning – or else have to live and work in dirtier conditions.</p>
<p>The bill would also decrease the availability and variety of a broader set of low-skilled personal services, such as child care. Research by business professors Patricia Cortes and Jose Tessada shows a greater supply of such services <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.3.3.88">allows more women to join the workforce</a> in high-skilled positions. Thus, the RAISE Act would likely displace some of our most productive women from jobs and might widen the <a href="http://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap/">gender pay gap</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186088/original/file-20170914-22524-1dkt8le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186088/original/file-20170914-22524-1dkt8le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186088/original/file-20170914-22524-1dkt8le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186088/original/file-20170914-22524-1dkt8le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186088/original/file-20170914-22524-1dkt8le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186088/original/file-20170914-22524-1dkt8le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186088/original/file-20170914-22524-1dkt8le.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mexican farm workers employed under the Bracero program are shown being processed at the labor center at Hidalgo, Texas, in 1959.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Echoes of history</h2>
<p>And in fact, past efforts to restrict immigration have provided no benefit to U.S. workers. </p>
<p>When the U.S. ended the bracero program in 1964, which had allowed large numbers of <a href="http://braceroarchive.org/teaching">Mexicans to work on U.S. farms</a>, neither the wages nor the employment rates of U.S. farm workers rose, according to <a href="http://nber.org/papers/w23125.pdf">recent research by economists</a> Michael Clemens, Hannah Postel and me. </p>
<p>In 1917 and then 1924, lawmakers motivated by rhetoric calling migrants from poor countries “<a href="https://meetmythamerica.wordpress.com/2014/07/14/thou-shalt-not-be-fruitful-and-multiply/">undesirable</a>” – similar to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/06/16/full-text-donald-trump-announces-a-presidential-bid/?utm_term=.ffc2ca487304">Trump’s language</a> today – introduced a literacy test and severe restrictions that dramatically reduced immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. But <a href="http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/nunn/files/nunn_qian_sequeira_immigrants.pdf">new research</a> shows that the great wave of immigrants that arrived before 1920 permanently raised income levels and lowered poverty rates in the regions where they settled. </p>
<p>Those who wish to restrict immigration <a href="http://www.jacksonsun.com/story/opinion/columnists/2017/08/07/less-immigration-means-more-american-jobs-higher-wages/544478001/">often cite</a> what they naïvely call “supply-and-demand economics” to essentially argue that the economy is a fixed pie that gets divided among a country’s residents. Fewer immigrants means “more pie” for the U.S.-born, as the story goes. </p>
<p>I am an economist, and this is not what my colleagues and I say. The commonplace argument that increases in the volume of immigration, by themselves, lower wages and take jobs from Americans – an argument which Attorney General Jeff Sessions used <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/05/trump-ending-daca-dreamers-program-sessions-transcript-242326">to defend ending DACA</a> – has neither <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090944317300200">empirical</a> nor <a href="https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/2017/9/cato-journal-v37n3-3.pdf">theoretical</a> support in economics. It is just a myth. </p>
<p>Instead, both theory and empirical research show that immigration, including low-skill and low-English immigration, grows the pie and strengthens the American workforce.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82571/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ethan Lewis receives funding from the Kauffman Foundation and the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>Trump’s decision to end the DACA program, as well as his support for a bill that would drastically curb legal immigration, would hurt the US workers he says he’s trying to help.Ethan Lewis, Associate Professor of Economics, Dartmouth CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/827272017-09-09T12:51:53Z2017-09-09T12:51:53ZCould Trump be holding Dreamers hostage to make Mexico pay for his border wall?<p>Fulfilling one of United States president Donald Trump’s <a href="http://time.com/4927100/donald-trump-daca-past-statements/">campaign promises</a>, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-sessions-delivers-remarks-daca">announced</a> the end of the <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/archive/consideration-deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-daca">Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)</a> programme. The initiative, launched by former president Barack Obama in 2012, allows people brought to the US illegally as children the temporary right to live, study and work in the country.</p>
<p>DACA protections will begin <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/daca2017">to expire</a> in six months, giving the US Congress a short window to legislate the now precarious futures of the 787,580 so-called “Dreamers” who currently <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/senate-bill/1291">benefit from the programme</a>. </p>
<p>In Mexico, as in <a href="http://time.com/4928812/donald-trump-dreamers-daca/">the US</a>, Sessions’ announcement was met with distress. Nearly 80% of the programme’s recipients were born in Mexico, and ending DACA exposes 618,342 undocumented young Mexicans (as well as 28,371 Salvadorans, 19,792 Guatemalans and 18,262 Hondurans) to deportation. Many in this group, who range in age from 15 to 36, were brought to the US as babies.</p>
<p>There’s been some <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-477291552/leon-krauze-con-alejandro-aguirre-en-oliva-noticias">speculation</a> that the US president is using DACA as a bargaining chip. North of the border, commentators think this is about <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/opinion/swap-daca-wall-funding.html?_r=0">making a deal with Democrats</a> in Congress. </p>
<p>But as a Mexican scholar of US-Mexico political history, I would argue that the DACA decision is more like a power play in Trump’s ongoing battle with the government of Mexico. So far President Enrique Peña Nieto has refused the White House’s <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/901804388649500672">demands</a> that his country pay for the proposed <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wall-and-the-beast-trumps-triumph-from-the-mexican-side-of-the-border-68559">southern border wall.</a> And he only agreed to <a href="https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2017/september/trilateral-statement-conclusion-0">renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement</a> after Trump threatened to withdraw the US from it.</p>
<p>White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders all but confirmed that Trump sees DACA as a political weapon when she acceded to a reporter’s assertion that the administration “seemed to be saying…if we’re going to allow Dreamers to stay in this country, we want a wall”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XSaVNbtcsFk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders on how DACA relates the proposed US-Mexico border wall.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Either way, I’d contend that Donald Trump is not only holding nearly a million innocent people hostage, trying to exchange dreams for bricks, he’s also neglecting the complex history of Mexican migration to the US – a centuries-long tale that, like all national borders, has (at least) two sides. </p>
<h2>Where DREAMS come true</h2>
<p>Long before Trump ran for president, American politicians <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=GUUwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT169&lpg=PT169&dq=presidentes+estados+unidos+culpan+mexico+migracion&source=bl&ots=Y_qO8-4uqy&sig=B0q5EQhws4Xywl6aYzsArfF7OFw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSp7fEvZPWAhVHi5QKHRh8Bvs4ChDoAQhkMAc#v=onepage&q=presidentes%20estados%20unidos%20culpan%20mexico%20migracion&f=false">blamed</a> Mexico for not doing enough to keep poor citizens from migrating northward. Mexicans, in turn, tend to blame the US for creating the demand for cheap labour.</p>
<p>The two cross-border problems are <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Labor_Organizations_in_the_United_States.html?id=rYQFAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">deeply intertwined</a>. And because the US and Mexico have both benefited from undocumented migration, each country’s efforts to control it have been ambiguous at best.</p>
<p>It is true that Mexico’s economy has long been unable to provide enough decent work for its people. Though unemployment has ranged from 3% to 4% for the last <a href="https://datos.bancomundial.org/indicador/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS">two decades</a>, underemployment is deep. In 2016, <a href="http://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/opinion/la-realidad-del-empleo-y-desempleo-en-mexico.html">14.52%</a> of the Mexican labour force was either working fewer than 35 hours per week or being paid under the meagre daily minimum wage (<a href="http://www.sat.gob.mx/informacion_fiscal/tablas_indicadores/paginas/salarios_minimos.aspx">US$4.50</a> a day). </p>
<p>For Mexico, then, migration is a safety valve, releasing social tensions that would arise if impoverished migrants stayed home. Mexicans abroad also send large amounts of money to their families in the form of remittances, injecting some <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/remittances-to-mexico-hit-record-27-billion-in-2016-1485978810">US$27 billion</a> into the Mexican economy last year.</p>
<p>Simple economics, however, teach us that demand begets supply. For generations, the modern US economy has thrived on low-wage Mexican labour. Even when nativism surged under president Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921), who signed the <a href="http://library.uwb.edu/Static/USimmigration/39%20stat%20874.pdf">Immigration Act of 1917</a> barring Asian immigration, Congress allowed continued recruitment of Mexicans to til American fields and lay American railroad tracks.</p>
<p>This trend continued throughout the 20th century. In 1942, the US and Mexico jointly instituted the <a href="http://braceroarchive.org/about">Bracero programme</a>, under which millions of Mexican labourers were hired to work agricultural jobs in the US while many able-bodied American men were off fighting World War II. </p>
<p>While under contract, <em>braceros</em> were given housing and paid a minimum wage of thirty cents an hour. By the time the programme ended, in 1964 (nearly two decades after the war’s end), the US had sponsored some <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Inside_the_State.html?id=2WMPAAAAYAAJ&redir_esc=y">5 million border crossings</a> in 24 states. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185314/original/file-20170908-32313-351xae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185314/original/file-20170908-32313-351xae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185314/original/file-20170908-32313-351xae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185314/original/file-20170908-32313-351xae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185314/original/file-20170908-32313-351xae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185314/original/file-20170908-32313-351xae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185314/original/file-20170908-32313-351xae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Braceros workers came legally to work in the US during World War II. Here, a group of Braceros crossing the border at Mexicali in 1954.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/MexicaliBraceros%2C1954.jpg">Los Angeles Times photographic archive, UCLA Library via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Workers who came into the US illegally were swiftly incorporated into the Bracero system, too. One of the more bizarre practices in the history of US immigration policy was the so-called “<a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Los_Mojados.html?id=JMJQAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">drying out</a>” of “wetbacks”, a derogatory official term for undocumented workers.</p>
<p>When the Border Patrol arrested a “wet” worker on a farm, officials would transport him to the border to set foot on Mexican soil – i.e., ritualistically “deport” him – and then allow him to step back into the US, where he would be hired to work legally as a <em>bracero</em>.</p>
<p>Mexicans have been crossing the border ever since, hoping to find the steady work and eventual acceptance that the Bracero programme once offered. In the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2061740">1965-1986 period</a>, for example, undocumented Mexicans made approximately 27.9 million entries into the US (offset by 23.3 million departures). In that same period approximately 4.6 million established residence in the country. </p>
<p>Without Bracero-style government support, American citizens and firms have simply employed those migrants under the table. Undocumented Mexicans dominate the <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/us-farmers-depend-on-illegal-immigrants-100541644/162082.html">US agricultural sector</a>, but they are also construction workers, line cooks, landscapers – even <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article16519040.html">Wall Street brokers and journalists</a>.</p>
<p>In 1986, Ronald Reagan signed the <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-100/pdf/STATUTE-100-Pg3445.pdf">Immigration Reform and Control Act</a>, a crackdown that promised tighter security at the Mexican border and strict penalties for employers who hired undocumented workers. However, the bill also offered amnesty to immigrants who had entered the country before 1982.</p>
<p>The term “Dreamers” itself refers to another American attempt at immigration reform, the bipartisan <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/senate-bill/1291">Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act</a> of 2001, which would have offered permanent legal residency to young people brought to the US as infants. </p>
<p>That bill was never passed. The Obama administration devised the DACA programme as a compromise to protect those young people, many of whom <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/dreamers-daca-trump-ends-program-fears-for-future">have never known any country but the US</a>. </p>
<h2>Bricks for dreams</h2>
<p>Chicana scholar Gloria Anzaldúa once <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Borderlands.html?id=yV1yAAAAMAAJ">described</a> the border as “<em>una herida abierta</em>” – an open wound – where “the Third World grates against the first and bleeds”. The Dreamers are children born of this wound.</p>
<p>Their uncertain fate has moved Mexicans, offering president Peña Nieto a rare chance to occupy the moral high ground. His administration has been ridden by successive scandals for months, including very public <a href="https://theconversation.com/governors-gone-wild-mexico-faces-a-lost-generation-of-corrupt-leaders-76858">corruption</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-many-mexicans-this-government-spying-scandal-feels-eerily-familiar-79981">illegal espionage</a> on Mexican citizens. </p>
<p>Peña Nieto <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KbFpt0MKYA">conveyed his support for</a> DACA recipients in his September 2 State of the Union address, saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I send affectionate greetings to the young beneficiaries of the administrative measure that protects those who arrived as infants to the United States. To all of you, young dreamers, our great recognition, admiration and solidarity without reservations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He later <a href="https://twitter.com/EPN/status/905169923478917120">tweeted</a> that any Dreamers deported to Mexico would be welcomed back “with open arms”, <a href="https://www.gob.mx/sre/prensa/el-gobierno-de-mexico-lamenta-profundamente-la-cancelacion-del-programa-de-accion-diferida-para-los-llegados-en-la-infancia-daca">offering</a> them access to credit, education, scholarships and health services.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"905169923478917120"}"></div></p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.gob.mx/sre/prensa/el-gobierno-de-mexico-lamenta-profundamente-la-cancelacion-del-programa-de-accion-diferida-para-los-llegados-en-la-infancia-daca">statement</a>, the Mexican Foreign Ministry acknowledged its northern neighbour’s sovereign right to determine its immigration policy but expressed “profound regret” that “thousands of young people” have been thrust into a state of turmoil and fear.</p>
<p>Trump seems willing to use any tactic necessary to get his wall built. If the US Congress does finally agree on a way to protect the Dreamers, it will give these young immigrants the American future they deserve, but no wall – be it Mexican-funded or otherwise – will stop other young Mexicans from trying to build their own.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82727/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luis Gómez Romero does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From south of the border, Trump seems to be using DACA as a diplomatic weapon in his ongoing power struggle with the Mexican government. That just hurts 800,000 people and helps President Peña Nieto.Luis Gómez Romero, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/517742016-01-18T10:53:37Z2016-01-18T10:53:37ZFulfilling Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream: the role for higher education<p>Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote “<a href="http://thekinglegacy.org/books/why-we-cant-wait">Why We Can’t Wait</a>” to dispel the notion that African Americans should be content to proceed on an incremental course toward full equality under the law and in the wider society. King observed,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse, and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet waiting and whispering, rather than raising their voices for genuine inclusion, is what many seem to expect of the children and grandchildren of King’s generation <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/radical-parents-despotic-children-1448325901">even today</a>. </p>
<p>At stake is the perceived legitimacy of American institutions, not just educational but those that we educate for: the police, the courts, government, the media, cultural institutions, banks and so on. These institutions are under scrutiny over their failure to evoke trust and to show that they are <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-241.ZS.html">visibly open to</a> the public – especially those groups, who too often and for too long have been left out. </p>
<p>Arguably, we are not the “land of opportunity” for most first-generation, poor, black, brown, Native American, or immigrant children. <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_caa.asp">Gaps in educational achievement</a> persist, and at every level: from <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/studies/pdf/school_composition_and_the_bw_achievement_gap_2015.pdf">kindergarten</a> through to the years after high school. </p>
<p>The label applied to so many immigrant youth, <a href="http://unitedwedream.org/">Dreamers</a>, might well be adopted more broadly, capturing as it does both the aspiration and perhaps the unreality of educational opportunity for so many.</p>
<p>And the students are right to worry. </p>
<p>The question is: what role can our universities play so the dividing lines can be crossed? </p>
<h2>‘Baked-in’ privilege</h2>
<p>Consider some statistics from Essex County, New Jersey, where our city, Newark, a <a href="http://blog.nj.com/njv_guest_blog/2012/02/newark_could_be_a_real_college.html">college town with over 50,000 students</a>, is located:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.nj.gov/education/schools/achievement/13/njask3/">47.54 percent</a> of black third graders attend schools that perform at the bottom 10 percent of schools in the state compared to 0.04 percent of white third graders. </li>
<li>About 4,000 high school students in the Newark Public Schools are <a href="http://nclc2025.org/sites/default/files/files/grad_nation_presentation.pdf">“missing”</a> during the school day, not in their seats; often labeled as “disconnected youth,” it would be better to consider them as youth connected to a <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-harsher-disciplinary-measures-school-systems-fail-black-kids-39906">pathway to prison</a>. </li>
<li><a href="http://www.nps.k12.nj.us/info/">Another 3,000</a> are off-course from graduating. </li>
<li>Only 36 percent of Newark residents have finished high school and only 17 percent hold any kind of post-secondary degree.</li>
</ul>
<p>This story is not unique to Newark. </p>
<p>Economists such as <a href="http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/images/mobility_trends.pdf">Raj Chetty and his colleagues</a> note that nationally “the consequences of the ‘birth lottery’ – the parents to whom a child is born – are larger today than in the past.”</p>
<p>We – the universities – are the ones sitting in the midst of these realities, facing the choice between being walled citadels that separate the privileged from the uninvited other or being welcoming hubs connecting young individuals with opportunity.</p>
<h2>Universities’ responsibility</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/mirror-mirror-reflections-on-race-and-the-visage-of-higher-education-in-america-43742">uncomfortable truth</a> is, that we, in some very real sense, have contributed to this winnowing of opportunity.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108343/original/image-20160116-7351-lzc1qs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108343/original/image-20160116-7351-lzc1qs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108343/original/image-20160116-7351-lzc1qs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108343/original/image-20160116-7351-lzc1qs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108343/original/image-20160116-7351-lzc1qs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108343/original/image-20160116-7351-lzc1qs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108343/original/image-20160116-7351-lzc1qs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chancellor Nancy Cantor speaking at the</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rutgers University Newark</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For too long, the traditional measures of student potential have relied on standardized – and therefore narrowly framed – merit selection processes, such as SAT and ACT scores. </p>
<p>These tests have been grossly inadequate, measuring only a narrow band of potential, while <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/21/sat">missing wide swaths of our talent pool</a> whose excellence is not readily detected through the use of such “blunt” instruments. </p>
<p>They neglect whole communities whose students don’t have access to the test preparation industry, prompting <a href="http://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/10344/Guinier">legal theorist Lani Guinier</a> to implore us to <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/02/20/386120632/q-a-with-lani-guinier-redefining-the-merit-in-meritocracy">redefine the merit in meritocracy</a>.</p>
<p>Intergenerational privilege is rooted in place – in the home values and tax base, the schools and transportation networks available to people because of where they are fortunate to live. Decades of white flight, suburbanization, the abandonment of urban centers and regressive housing policies have contributed to a <a href="http://apps.tcf.org/architecture-of-segregation">pervasive disconnection</a> across racial, ethnic and class lines. </p>
<p>This segregation has reinforced the corrosive effects of historical prejudice and biases that already divide society and make Americans, in effect, strangers to each other. </p>
<p>It should come as no surprise, then, that the social landscapes of university communities <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/quiet-revolution/201505/tipping-point-where-bigotry-awakens-roar">are just as divided</a>.</p>
<h2>Crossing boundaries</h2>
<p>Diversity is growing explosively and <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2014/11/diversity-explosion">redefining American society before our eyes</a>. </p>
<p>Yet lines of class, gender, ethnicity and race continue to redraw themselves in dorm life, lunch tables and indeed the classroom. </p>
<p>Indeed, it is hard to erase them. </p>
<p>How do you cultivate connection to another person’s future and commitment to their success when you don’t live together in the same neighborhood, reside near each other in the same city or at least share some similar daily experiences such as rush hour on a crowded subway? </p>
<p>As <a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9781610448055">higher educational institutions</a>, we should be the place where dividing lines can be crossed. And that includes crossing the boundaries of our communities.</p>
<p>Our work in the city of Newark is just one illustration of crossing these boundaries.</p>
<h2>Newark’s story</h2>
<p>In this postindustrial <a href="http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_facts.xhtml#none">city of 280,000 people</a>, 29 percent of residents have incomes below the poverty line.</p>
<p>Newark’s social and economic challenges are common among cities that have lost their tax base and whose residents have fled to the suburbs since the 1960s. The resulting economic and racial segregation has <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lwave_qPlYUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=crabgrass+frontier&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiF_IqVjN7JAhVBNz4KHYjAARIQ6AEIMDAA#v=onepage&q=crabgrass%20frontier&f=false">produced structural inequalities</a> in health, education and other public services. </p>
<p>Today, Newark, a proud, resilient city, is coming back from years of disinvestment. As an engaged <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-bartley/the-rise-of-the-anchor-in_b_4589224.html">“anchor institution”</a>, we are <a href="http://newark.rutgers.edu/node/14362">partnering</a> with the community on many fronts. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108344/original/image-20160116-7371-16envuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108344/original/image-20160116-7371-16envuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108344/original/image-20160116-7371-16envuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108344/original/image-20160116-7371-16envuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108344/original/image-20160116-7371-16envuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108344/original/image-20160116-7371-16envuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108344/original/image-20160116-7371-16envuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The future home of Express Newark - the historic Hahne Building.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rutgers University Newark</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We are <a href="http://www.newark.rutgers.edu/anchor-institution-2">investing in spaces for local artists and the community to collaborate</a>, as we develop nearly 50,000 square feet in the iconic former Hahne & Company department story as an arts “collaboratory” – dubbed “<a href="http://www.newark.rutgers.edu/files/express-newark-plan.pdf">Express Newark.</a>” </p>
<p>We are working with <a href="http://www.business.rutgers.edu/cueed/about">small and midsized entrepreneurs and firms</a> and taking an active role in <a href="http://www.rutgerscps.org/">helping Newark’s police</a> address crime hotspots through data collection and analysis. </p>
<p>Organizations – public and private – have banded together in the <a href="http://www.nclc2025.org/">Newark City of Learning Collaborative</a> (NCLC) to raise the post-secondary attainment rate of residents of Newark to 25 percent by 2025.</p>
<p>For the higher education partners in NCLC like us, this means working with Newark Public Schools to help their students continue their education past high school, beginning in community colleges, the <a href="http://www.tcf.org/bookstore/detail/bridging-the-higher-education-divide">institutions where the vast majority of first generation students will have their first taste of higher education</a>. </p>
<p>At Rutgers University – Newark, for example, we are providing <a href="https://www.newark.rutgers.edu/news/ru-n-announces-major-financial-aid-initiative-tap-newarks-and-new-jerseys-talent">tuition support</a> to low-income residents of Newark and to any New Jersey community college transfer with an associate degree as of fall 2016.</p>
<p>We are recruiting these students based on assessments of leadership, grit and entrepreneurial skills – not just grades – into a residential <a href="http://hllc.newark.rutgers.edu/">Honors Living Learning Community</a> (HLLC). In addition to gleaning information about applicants from the standard application form, the HLLC team engages with applicants in person and in groups to see how they collaborate with one another to solve problems. Their on-the-ground knowledge of urban life has much to contribute, as we see it, to the HLLC’s curriculum focus of “local citizenship in a global world.” </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108345/original/image-20160116-7341-1op4xw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108345/original/image-20160116-7341-1op4xw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108345/original/image-20160116-7341-1op4xw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108345/original/image-20160116-7341-1op4xw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108345/original/image-20160116-7341-1op4xw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108345/original/image-20160116-7341-1op4xw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108345/original/image-20160116-7341-1op4xw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first cohort of HLLC students.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rutgers University Newark</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ashlee is one of the inaugural class. Born and raised in Newark, she speaks openly of “being a product of my environment…exposed to so much just by walking outside of
my house…[including] murder at the age of 12.” Her options, she says, were two: “conform to what’s going on in society or try to make a difference.” She is now a criminal justice major keenly interested in issues of social equality and inequality.</p>
<h2>Academic ‘farm teams’</h2>
<p>Rutgers-Newark is not alone in looking to build on the assets of this fresh talent pool for America. </p>
<p>There is an increasing number of so-called <a href="https://www.luminafoundation.org/news-and-events/thirty-five-communities-added-to-lumina-foundation-s-community-based-postsecondary-education-attainment-strategy">collective impact initiatives </a>across the higher education landscape, including <a href="http://www.cps-k12.org/community/partners/strive">STRIVE</a>, a nonprofit started in Cincinnati, and three large city-wide initiatives in Syracuse, Buffalo and Guilford County, North Carolina mounted by <a href="http://sayyestoeducation.org/">Say Yes to Education.</a> </p>
<p>Collective impact projects like these can be taxing and messy, but by bringing so many different partners together – from education institutions to businesses and faith-based centers – to focus on enabling the talented next generation to thrive from school to college and beyond, we put a stake in the ground together for social justice. It’s admittedly still one step at a time, but one step in many places. </p>
<p>When higher education bands together to support and recruit talent from these regional hubs, it gives a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-cantor/diversity-higher-education_b_3695503.html">new meaning to the notion of “farm teams.”</a>. After all, if major league baseball can do it, why can’t higher education?</p>
<p>The impatient students <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-cantor/why-do-we-keep-dropping_b_8906112.html">protesting a sense of exclusion today </a>have undeniable facts to support their argument. Our institutions, we believe, can help them overcome the barriers they, and others, face in their search for economic opportunity and a sense that they are valued.</p>
<p>How could anyone continue to “wait and whisper” while witnessing the enormous and cumulative effect of disparity unfold for another generation, with so many children never even getting to first base and some starting out on third?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51774/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elise Boddie is a board member of the American Constitution Society and the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nancy Cantor is a member of the board of The Conversation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David D. Troutt, Peter Englot, and Roland V. Anglin do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, five educators reflect on recent campus protests and describe concrete actions universities can take to bring opportunity to all.Roland V. Anglin, Director, The Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies, Rutgers University - NewarkDavid D. Troutt, Professor of Law and Justice John J Francis Scholar, Rutgers University - NewarkElise Boddie, Associate Professor of Law, Rutgers University - NewarkNancy Cantor, Chancellor, Rutgers University - NewarkPeter Englot, Senior Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.