A coalition of 114 companies, including Southwest and United Airlines, say ongoing efforts from Texas and the Trump administration to kill the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program will result in thousands of vibrant young people being driven out of the workforce, “inflict serious harm” to American businesses, and cost Texas’s economy up to $6 billion a year.
“’Every day DACA is enjoined, approximately 1,700 people will lose their jobs—which in turn translates into lost productivity and revenue for companies, lost tax revenue for governments, and broader economic contraction,’ according to a legal brief filed Saturday by a coalition of 114 companies, including Amazon, Uber, Verizon and others,” The Chronicle reports.
Texas is home to the second largest population of DACA recipients in the nation. It’s also home to Judge Andrew Hanen, the anti-immigrant judge that the Trump administration hopes will deliver a death blow to the program. While Donald Trump rescinded DACA last year, the courts have forced the administration to partially resurrect it, by allowing current and former beneficiaries to renew their protections.
In May, seven states, led by indicted Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, sued, turning Hanen’s Brownsville courtroom into ground zero in the fight to protect—or kick out—Dreamers. Beyond the dollars and cents, an end to DACA without any congressional solution will leave hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who know no other place but the U.S. as their home vulnerable to deportation. Many of these young immigrants are parents to U.S. citizens themselves.
The fact that Texas is leading the action to deport Dreamers is a disgrace—Alonso Guillén, a DACA recipient, was among the rescuers killed following the Hurricane Harvey disaster last year. “It is too dangerous,” his father reportedly pleaded. “But when it came to helping others, Guillén … was headstrong.” Other immigrant youth, themselves facing an uncertain future, have put those worries aside to help with recovery efforts in the state.
Of course, “the Texas Attorney General’s office says the business group’s claims are misleading, because they falsely assert the state is asking for immediate deportation of document recipients. That is not the case. The state says it is asking for a halt on future actions.” Oh, what passes for kindness in this administration. We won’t deport you now, we’ll just deport you later, essentially.
The fact is that DACA recipients continue to live from court decision to court decision, and that’s not any way for families to live, and by refusing to pass permanent protections for them, like the bipartisan DREAM Act, the Republican-led Congress is complicit in this. Remember that in November.