DACA and beneficiaries of the popular program are celebrating 13 years of successes
Many Dreamers currently protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program have delivered for America and themselves. These bright young people who are American in every way except full legal status have transitioned from students and job seekers to professionals and heads of households to become leaders, breadwinners and major contributors.
“For years, elected officials and media outlets highlighted DACA recipients’ youth and the fact that they’d been educated alongside their U.S. citizen peers,” FWD.us said in a policy brief. “Today, DACA recipients are no longer children; the protections afforded by the policy have helped them to build their lives in the U.S., graduate from school, grow their careers, and establish their own families.”
In fact, many Dreamers – some of whom are now in their 30s – have experienced transformational changes that have not only continued enriching their own lives and communities, but made them only more deeply ingrained in the only country they’ve ever known as home.
In 2012, the year that former President Barack Obama announced that eligible young immigrants could apply for work permits and protection from deportation, 17% of respondents said they were married, while 22% said they had children. More than a decade later, 44% say they are married, while half say they have children. Many of these beloved family members are American citizens, FWD.us said.
“We estimate that about a fifth of DACA recipients—110,000 people—are married to a U.S. citizen. Similarly, some 300,000 U.S. citizen children live with at least one parent who is a DACA recipient.”
But DACA has also hugely benefited our country. Findings from recent years have revealed that DACA recipients have been “more integrated in the American economy than they have ever been,” including reporting a record level of employment, which benefits essential industries, our nation’s economy, and federal programs essential to the everyday lives of millions of Americans.
The Center for American Progress (CAP) estimated that in 2022, “more than 482,000 DACA recipients were in the workforce, collectively earning nearly $27.9 billion and contributing nearly $2.1 billion to Social Security and Medicare annually. In addition, their employers contributed more than $1.6 billion in payroll taxes toward Social Security and Medicare on these DACA recipients’ behalf.”
FWD.us further reveals that as DACA recipients have increased their median income from $4,000 in 2012 to nearly $45,000 in 2025, beneficiaries have paid “well more than a hundred billion dollars to the economy as well as tens of billions in combined taxes.”
DACA recipients have also outpaced U.S.-born Americans when it comes to opening a business. Earlier this year, CAP highlighted the story of Texas DACA recipient Christian Serrano, who started a home design and construction business as a way to support his family.
DACA “really gave me that motivation where I can breathe freely now in this country and actually be someone—and prove to people that [DACA] recipients are here to help this economy out to help this country grow,” he said at the time. Through hard work and sweat, he now has more than a dozen employees, working together to generate $5 million in revenue.
“Serrano’s contributions to the local economy have not gone unnoticed: He was recently honored with Dallas Business Journal’s 2023 ‘40 Under 40” award,’ CAP said.
Some 20,000 Dreamers teach our children. More than 200,000 Dreamers were on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic response. DACA recipients are Broadway actors, Olympians, and pop culture personalities like Xunami Muse and Geneva Karr, who made history during the 16th season of the Emmy-winning RuPaul’s Drag Race as the first Dreamers to compete on the show. “We represent the American dream, we are proof that hard work pays off,” Karr said last year.
Muse told Rolling Stone that growing up, “there was this pressure of being a model citizen, and well guess what? We are these model citizens. All I want to do is spread my joy and do my drag and make people laugh and smile.” Even just having a work authorization changed many Dreamers’ lives and the lives of their dependents.
Simply put, DACA has been transformational for Dreamers – and hugely beneficial to the country. Conversely, the effects of ending this popular and successful program would be massively detrimental and far-reaching, resulting in “long-term, staggering human and economic” losses, the Coalition for the American Dream said. Despite the success, there are Dreamers that can’t have DACA (even though they are eligible) because the program has been in a court battle for years and has not been able to approve any new, first-time applications.
Years of personal storytelling by Dreamers, reporting, and data have affirmed DACA to be one of the most successful immigration policies in U.S. history, giving its beneficiaries the ability to become professionals, drive legally, pursue higher education, support themselves and their families, and thrive in the only country they know as home. They embody the American Dream. But what they deserve, especially after years of legal limbo, is a pathway to citizenship.
As we celebrate DACA’s 13th birthday, let’s reaffirm our commitment to winning permanent peace of mind for these Americans-in-waiting.
