Why Common Critiques of DACA Are Misleading

On the 5th of September this year, Trump decides to end DACA with a 6-month delay. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals also known as DACA is a policy that allows undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children to receive a renewable two-year period of delayed deportation and eligibility to receive a work permit. However, in the midst of this controversy, those who defended Trumps decision to repeal DACA have been conveying misleading critiques about the program.

In an article from The New York Times written by Linda Qiu helps to clarify the deceiving opinions of those who defended Trump's decision. Those who supported the end of DACA claim that DACA granted legal status to the recipients, triggered a movement of migration from Central America and that the recipients put native-born Americans out of work. This article explains how these claims are misleading and Qiu provides the evidence that supports the statements of how DACA recipients are not granted legal citizenship and how they are only given work permits and protection from deportation but in order for them to gain citizenship or legal status they can either obtain a legal permanent residency, also know as a green card or change their immigration status through a legal arrangement, for example, marrying an American citizen. Also, it sheds light on how there's no correlation on how DACA could have been the main motivating factor in initiating a massive surge of unaccompanied minors from Central America. However, those children from Central America that tried to cross the border of the U.S alone in 2014 wouldn't have qualified for DACA because it’s a program that only undocumented immigrants who have been living in the U.S. since 2007 and were brought in before the age of 16. Also, Qiu mentions how other significant factors could of have driven migration for these children. Furthermore, Linda Qui provides evidence on how the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics demonstrated the trends in unemployment between native-born and foreign-born and how they did not change with the implementation of the DACA program.

all things considered, I think this article is worth reading because it gives a clear explanation of what DACA is and it also helps to clarify the common critiques of DACA by providing statistical evidence and research. In addition, it helps to be well informed about policies rather than to be ignorant and just assume that whatever is being said is correct.