For 24-year-old Nicolas Ugaz-Valencia, every work day is living the American dream. He is a manager for a home health care service in New York City, using his Spanish language skills to help people in need. Back in 2001, Nicolas and his family left their home country of Peru in pursuit of a new life in the United States of America.
For years, Nicolas and his family lived in the shadows, because they lacked legal status to be in the U.S., but in 2012 everything changed when then-President Barack Obama signed an executive order creating DACA.
Last fall, President Trump said he would cancel DACA and ordered March 5th as the deadline to end it. But, a federal appeals court order rendered that date meaningless so current DACA recipients can continue to renew their status while the court decides whether the suspension can proceed.
If it rules in favor of the administration, hundreds of thousands of DREAMers could be deported and this in-turn could affect US Economy. Ike Brannon, a senior fellow at the CATO Institute who has studied the impact of DACA recipients on the economy, recently co-authored a new report that forecasts the cost of reversing the program.
According to Brannon keeping DACA recipients in the United States and allowing them to legally work and live here is going to be a boom for the economy. Brannon says that in the next 10 years, DREAMers could add an extra $350 billion to the economy which would result in an additional $90 billion of tax revenue, just for the federal government.
In the meantime, the young immigrants have no option but to carry on as they await the future of DACA.
“You have to be very resilient as an immigrant, because in the midst of all this adversity, you have to stand tall and really keep on fighting, because that is what we have been doing since we came to this country. We have to fight and continue to have dreams,” said Ugaz-Valencia.
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