California

DACA Repeal's Effect on Southern California

The I-Team looked at various reports from the time DACA went into effect in 2012 to see how ending the program would impact Southern California. 

California is home to nearly 29 percent of eligible DACA recipients in the nation, according to the non-profit, non-partisan group Migration Policy Institute. 

The institute estimates that LA County is home to 65-70,000 DACA recipients, more than any other county in the country.

“The immigrant population is largest in the LA metropolitan area so of course LA County is number one, then Orange County and San Bernadino and Riverside,” Randy Capps, a research director for the Migration Policy Institute said.

In announcing the plan to end the DACA program, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said it had “denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing…illegal aliens to take those jobs.”

According to Capps, DACA recipients make up about one-quarter of one percent of U.S. workers. The total undocumented population does compete with American workers, especially those without a high school degree. But DACA recipients must have a degree or be in school to be accepted into the program.

In total, California has roughly 193,000 DACA recipients, according to the Center for American Progress. Their data estimates the yearly loss in gross domestic product for the state if DACA workers were removed to be more than $11 billion.

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