Tomorrow marks the 12th anniversary of the announcement of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and today we’re devoting The Forum Daily to stories from the past year about DACA and Dreamers — some in Dreamers’ own words as their futures hang in the balance. 

First, some new data: This week the Coalition for the American Dream released a new report showing that ending DACA would come at a trillion-dollar cost for the country, considering investments in the past decade and squandered economic contributions both past and future. 

Currently, there are almost 530,000 active DACA recipients, per U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. As the new report highlights, they have nearly a million U.S. citizen family members, and about 440,000 recipients are in the workforce. Since DACA’s start, the economy has benefited from recipients’ spending power to the tune of an estimated $140 billion. 

DACA is being challenged in court, keeping its recipients in legal limbo despite their contributions to American society. As we’ve said since the day DACA was announced, we still need a lasting solution from Congress that will solidify and compound Dreamers’ contributions. One possibility would be the bipartisan Dream Act, introduced first in 2001 and most recently in 2023. Writing in El País, Eileen Truax has more on this history.  

Our survey last month indicates that a significant majority of Americans, including notable margins among conservatives, support a legislative solution that would allow Dreamers to earn legal status and eventual citizenship. Jennie highlights this survey and other important points in a brand new LinkedIn post this morning. You can also tune in to our recent webinar for more on solutions, and then visit our Dreamer advocacy resources for opportunities to take action. 

Welcome to Friday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I’m Dan Gordon, the Forum’s strategic communications VP, and the great Forum Daily team also includes Jillian Clark, Samantha Siedow, Darika Verdugo and Clara Villatoro. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected]. 

IMPACT — In a September 2023 piece for The xxxxxx, Linda Chavez, the Forum’s Senior Fellow, reminds us exactly what’s at stake for not only Dreamers but the country at large. "Employers face the prospect of losing trained and essential workers. American-citizen children may lose their parents, spouses their husband or wife. Communities will lose tax dollars, school children their teachers, hospitals their nurses and doctors, landlords their tenants, businesses their customers," Chavez wrote.  

STILL DREAMING — Dreamers graduating from high school in Tyler, Texas, are finding themselves with limited possibilities, Maria Sacchetti and Kevin Sullivan of The Washington Post reported in November. Sisters Joseline and Daniela Leyva were barely too young to apply for DACA when Trump administration actions closed it to new applicants. With dreams of becoming a nurse, Daniela Leyva said, "My parents, they came here at my age, with two little girls, with a dream. So I’m not going to give up."     

FAMILY — DACA recipient Pamela Portocarrero wants bipartisan reforms to protect families and secure permanent solutions for individuals like her, she wrote in a November Salt Lake Tribune op-ed. A mother, wife and successful professional who has had DACA protections for more than 10 years, court rulings threatening DACA leave Portocarrero in fear. "The prospect of having to be separated from my children is truly unbearable," she wrote. 

COMMUNITY — Churches in Fort Worth, Texas, have come together to support DACA recipients, Marissa Greene of the Fort Worth Report wrote in October. "The right thing to do is to give them an opportunity to be full participants of the American life, of the American way," said the Rev. Fernando Rojas.     

Thank you, Dreamers, and thanks for reading,  

Dan