DACA claim mostly on target
Calling out Republicans, Julián Castro of Texas said research shows that nearly every young immigrant at risk of losing federal protection from deportation is employed, in school or serving in the military.
According to an October web post, the former Housing and Urban Development secretary was generally urging the Republican-led Congress to change federal law by offering a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children or those who overstayed their visas.
So, is Castro right about Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients nearly all being in school, employed or in the military?
Asked the basis of his claim, Castro said he drew his data points from an August web post by the left-leaning Center for American Progress about a national DACA survey.
That survey, we found, asked if DACA recipients had jobs or were in school. It didn’t ask if respondents were in the military.
The center’s post summarizing the results said Tom Wong, a political scientist at the University of California San Diego, led the August survey of 3,063 DACA recipients.
All told, the post says, the survey reached DACA recipients in 46 states including Texas, where 17% of respondents said they were living, according to the center’s separate post of the survey’s 22 questions and tallied results.
Asked if they were “currently employed,” 91.4% answered affirmatively, according to the results, with 55.9% of those respondents saying they hadn’t been employed “before DACA.”
Another question asked if the respondent was currently in school; 44.9% responded affirmatively with 55% saying not, according to the results.
Wong told us by email that an additional sort of the “in school” and “currently employed” responses showed 97% of all respondents reporting being employed or enrolled in school — with 71.5% of those saying that they were in school reportedly pursuing a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Solid research, expert says
We asked Ernesto Castañeda, an American University expert on migration research, if he considers the survey results to be valid.
Castañeda’s answer: Yes. Wong and his colleagues “carried out a valid study on a hardto-reach population,” Castañeda said by email. “With more than three thousand respondents, this is an exceptionally large sample size.”
Castañeda told us too that the study’s results appeared to be consistent with ethnographic research on DACA recipients and survey and interview research through 2016 by Roberto Gonzales, a Harvard University expert on immigration and social inequality, suggesting that DACA recipients made gains after getting that designation.
Wong and Gonzales each found DACA beneficiaries finding educational and career opportunities that had been closed to them before they entered the program.
According to Gonzales’ study, posted by the center in June, “DACA beneficiaries told the authors that they were able to match their education and training with work that was meaningful to them—‘an occupation that they could be proud of and that did not carry the stigma of ‘immigrant work.’ ”
Wong told us a result from his 2017 study stood out to him: 54.2% of respondents reported getting a job “that better fits my education and training.”
DACA recipients’ high education levels make sense, Wong said, because the program requires applicants to be currently in school, have graduated from high school, have obtained a General Education Development (GED) certificate or be an honorably discharged Coast Guard or military veteran.
“We’re actually requiring them to be more educated than the general population,” Wong said, adding: “Now that the DACA population is getting older, we’re talking about a pretty sizable number of college-educated individuals who are just beginning to hit their strides in their careers.”
Castañeda wrote: “DACA recipients are by definition positively self-selected since they have to apply to the program, deal with the complex application process and requirements,
and pay application fees.”
We also asked Jessica Vaughan of the conservative-leaning Center for Immigration Studies to evaluate the survey cited by Castro.
Vaughan told us that she would not be surprised that DACA recipients participate in the labor force at high rates because for many, employment was likely “a motivating factor to apply for DACA.”
Vaughan speculated, though, that the survey overstated the employment and education rates of DACA recipients simply by being administered online and, she suggested, drawing from people with regular online access as well as individuals with the “time and inclination to fill out such a survey.”
It’s reasonable, she said, to suppose that the same people would be more likely employed and well-educated.
Our rating
Castro said a “recent analysis” showed that 91% of DACA recipients are employed, in school or serving in the military.
Some 97% of respondents to an August 2017 online survey reported being employed or in school. However, the researchers asked no questions about military service.
We rate this claim Mostly True.