Immigrant youth and advocates rally in Austin in 2019. DACA recipients are not a drain on the Texas economy — they’re an asset, the Statesman Editorial Board argues.
Lola Gomez
Valeria Herrera loves working with kids on the “patient-focused side of health care.” She is one of three pediatric nurses in her 40-person unit at Austin’s Dell Children’s Medical Center who are protected from deportation — and allowed to work — through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
Immigration lawyers and advocates expect a judge in Brownsville to adopt a Justice Department proposal later this month that would strip work authorization from Herrera and Texas’ other 90,000 DACA recipients. Still shielded from deportation but no longer allowed to work, many — like Herrera — would have to look elsewhere to make a living.
Article continues below this ad
“It’s a little bit scary to think that I might have to move out of the state that I’ve called home for so long,” she told us. “But I think I’m also trying to just stay positive and take it one day at a time and hope for the best.”
The courts have picked up Congress’ policymaking slack ever since the collapse of efforts to pass the 2012 DREAM Act, a bill with bipartisan support that aimed to create a pathway to legal status for people brought to the United States as children, many of them with no memory of their birth country. Then-President Barack Obama created DACA that year to fill the gap. The program has been plagued by legal challenges, including Texas’ 2018 lawsuit that has put DACA recipients in this situation. Our state risks losing tens of thousands of workers at a critical time for key industries.
The courts accepted Texas’ argument that DACA recipients present a “pocketbook injury” to the state through medical, educational and other costs. Now the federal government is proposing how a scaled-back DACA should work specifically in Texas, the only state that has convinced the courts that the program poses an economic harm. The numbers, however, tell a different story. Cutting these workers out of the economy will only hurt Texas.
More than 97% of the 221,200 DACA-eligible people in Texas are employed. Each year, they collectively earn $8.2 billion in household income, have $6.2 billion in spending power and contribute $2 billion in local, state and federal taxes, according to the American Immigration Council. And while DACA recipients pay in-state tuition in Texas, they are ineligible for federal grants. Herrera received a merit-based scholarship but still worked three jobs to pay for college.
Article continues below this ad
The idea that DACA recipients are too costly for Texas is “certainly a tenuous argument” unsupported by any “meaningful” analysis, said Jorge Loweree of the American Immigration Council. Revoking their work authorization is not only “enormously harmful” to those individuals, but also to the state’s economy, he said. We agree.
DACA recipients are not a drain on Texas. They are an asset. They are health care providers like Herrera — as well as teachers, builders, entrepreneurs and essential workers. Texas has benefited enormously from their contributions and should consider itself fortunate to have the country’s second largest DACA-eligible population. Indeed, nearly three-quarters of Texans believe DACA recipients should be allowed to stay and work legally, according to a January survey by the University of Houston.
DACA recipients have adapted to the uncertainty caused by the legal challenges to the program. They must renew their status every two years, living with the fear of being sent back to a place they barely know.
Valeria Herrera works as a pediatric nurse at Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin thanks to the work authorization she received through the DACA program.
Lupita Calderón
For Herrera, this instability has become one of her “biggest insecurities,” a constant shadow over the life she has built in Austin. “I’m very proud of where I am, but I still feel limited,” she told us. She is often asked why she hasn’t tried to become a citizen, but she has no such option. The precarious, stop-gap protection of DACA is her only recourse.
Article continues below this ad
If her work authorization is revoked, Herrera said she’ll probably work as a traveling nurse before settling somewhere she feels safe and valued. Texas, however, can’t afford to lose her and other DACA recipients to other states. The Texas Hospital Association projects a shortage of 57,000 registered nurses by 2023, driven by burnout, pay issues and the pandemic’s toll.
And it’s not just nurses. Texas also faces critical shortages of teachers, construction workers and farm laborers — challenges made worse by the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies. According to a Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas report this week, one in five Texas businesses now struggles to hire or retain foreign-born workers. Meanwhile, the demand for workers with university degrees and other kinds of postsecondary education is on the rise.
DACA is “a policy that has made a lasting, positive impact on Texas’ workforce, economy and communities.” That quote didn’t come from an immigrant advocacy organization. It’s from a letter published this summer by Glenn Hamer, president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business. DACA recipients “fill labor force gaps that otherwise would be left open, and they help our industries thrive,” he wrote.
Article continues below this ad
For Valeria Herrera and tens of thousands like her, time is running short. Texas business leaders know what’s at stake: A strong economy depends on a stable, legal workforce. Now they must make that case to Congress — loudly and persistently — before the courts do lasting damage. Protecting DACA isn’t a partisan cause. It’s a matter of sound economic policy and basic fairness.