https://cis.org/Richwine/How-Many-Illegal-Immigrants-May-Be-Eligible-Future-DACAHow Many Illegal Immigrants May Be Eligible for a Future DACA?
By Jason Richwine on November 18, 2019
As the Supreme Court ponders whether President Trump can revoke his predecessor's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the problem that DACA was intended to address grows more difficult by the day. When President Obama initiated DACA in June of 2012, recipients needed to have been present in the United States for five years. As a result, illegal immigrants who were in the United States at the time DACA was announced but arrived as children after June of 2007 remain ineligible. More importantly, the federal government's continued failure to control illegal inflows has added many more childhood arrivals since 2012.
Number of Potential Recipients
of a New DACA Living in the
U.S. in 2017, by Arrival Year
Arrival Year Count
2007 (second half)1 46,597
2008 71,550
2009 64,060
2010 69,670
2011 66,299
2012 92,421
2013 102,132
2014 127,908
2015 142,562
2016 177,119
2017 (first half) 83,203
2017 (second half)2 102,742
Total 1,146,263
Source: CIS analysis of the 2017 American
Community Survey.
Potential recipients arrived before the age of 16
but after the existing DACA program's 2007 cutoff.
1 Estimate based on half the total for 2007.
2 Projected based on trends in border
apprehensions.
As of 2017, we estimate that the United States has more than 1.1 million illegal immigrants who arrived before the age of 16 but are not eligible for the current DACA program because they arrived after the cutoff time. Data for 2018 and 2019 are not yet available, but rough projections (not shown in the table) suggest that the growth in childhood arrivals has accelerated over those two years. As these young illegal immigrants increase in number, the likelihood and scope of future DACA programs will increase as well.
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