A report by FWD.us, a bipartisan political organization, estimates that at least 100,000 undocumented students who will graduate from US high schools USA annually for the next three years are not eligible for DACA immigration policy.

Part of the 2.8 million population of so-called “Dreamers” (students without legal permission) arrived in the United States as children and spent most of their lives in the country.

With more than 600,000 K-12 undocumented students enrolled in U.S. schools, hundreds of thousands of future high school graduates will continue to face limited options for their futures without immigration relief. It is estimated only a quarter of this year’s undocumented high school graduates would be eligible for immigration relief through DACA under current rules. This is because the class of 2022 is one of the first graduating classes where most undocumented graduates are ineligible for DACA because they entered the U.S. after the DACA-required arrival date of June 15, 2007, according to the report.

According to the FWD, “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a DHS policy offering work authorization and deportation protections for undocumented individuals who entered the U.S. as children, has been life-changing for hundreds of thousands of Dreamers since its inception in 2012. […] Attempts by the Trump Administration to end DACA, combined with court orders interrupting access to new prospective DACA applicants, left a short window of about six months in 2021 for most of these DACA-eligible graduates to have applied”.

DACA was put in place as a temporary stopgap in 2012, giving the right to work and study, and deferral from potential deportation to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as minors before 2007.

Of the 600,000 enrolled students, only about 21,000 are enrolled in the program and potentially eligible for renewals. According to the study, recent data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data indicates that “only 21,000 of the 611,000 total active DACA recipients are around high school graduation age (ages 16-20). Unfortunately, even those graduates fortunate enough to have received DACA during the limited periods of access for new applicants cannot count on its benefits in the future, as the courts prepare to rule on a lawsuit that could jeopardize the entire DACA policy”.

Legal action stemming from the Trump administration’s efforts to end the policy, and legislation on the matter is unlikely, at least in the short term., young immigrants without DACA aid seek informal jobs that do not require work permits or find other options. ways to pay school fees in hopes of one day being covered by DACA protections in the future.

“The federal government is currently prohibited by a court ruling from extending DACA to new beneficiaries, and the entire program could be struck down by the courts”, according to The Hill.

“Last month, a bipartisan group led by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) started immigration reform talks to gauge a path forward for a series of targeted House-passed immigration reform bills”, according to the same publication.

“DACA has had a transformational impact on both DACA recipients and the broader U.S. economy, allowing recipients to better support themselves and their families and more fully participate in their communities. Without DACA, however, undocumented high school graduates cannot legally work, leaving thousands of individuals barred from the U.S. labor force at a time when U.S. worker shortages have reached a record high. This also cuts off a significant source of income that these young adults could use to fund their higher education and professional training, in addition to supporting their families and building self-sufficiency”, points out the report.