Immigration

The United States is home to over 643,000 Dreamers. A recent Supreme Court ruling struck down the Trump administration’s attempt to end the program.

Since President Barack Obama signed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive order in 2012, nearly 826,000 people have been accepted into the program. The policy was meant to protect unauthorized immigrants who were brought to the US as minors – known as "Dreamers" – from deportation.

In April 2018, President Donald Trump tried to shutter the program. However, the dissolution of DACA was put on hold, pending legal disputes. On June 18, 2020, the Supreme Court issued a decision in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California which held that the Trump administration’s effort to end DACA was “arbitrary and capricious” and blocked the policy change. The decision did not weigh in on the merits of DACA; rather, it found that the administration violated the Administrative Procedures Act by failing to sufficiently justify its decision to end DACA.

As a result, the unauthorized immigrants who came to the US as children and received work authorization and protection from deportation will continue to participate in DACA for the foreseeable future. DACA does not provide recipients with a path to citizenship, but participants can apply for lawful entry by marrying a US citizen or re-entering the country legally.

How many DACA recipients are there in the United States? How has that changed since the start of the program?

Approximately 643,560 unauthorized immigrants are currently benefiting from the program, according to March 2020 data from US Citizenship and Immigration Services. (USCIS)

Between 2012 and March 2020, 825,998 people were approved to participate in the DACA program for at least two years. More than half of the cases, 472,287, were approved in the first two years of the program. In contrast, in 2018 and 2019, only 26,173 new DACA applicants were approved.

DACA status lasts for two years, after which recipients can apply for renewal. Since the program began, USCIS has received around 2 million renewal requests. Between 2012 and March 2020, USCIS rejected 7% — or 148,304 — of these requests.

To learn more about the DACA program, about where dreamers originate from? who are they? where do DACA recipients live? Click here.