CSII Interactive Map: Number Eligible for DREAM Act of 2017 and Economic Gains by U.S. Congressional District

Updated on December 12, 2017

CSII Interactive Map: Number Eligible for DREAM Act of 2017 and Economic Gains by U.S. Congressional District

With Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) coming to a close on March 5th, 2018, pressure has been placed on Congress to legislate a pathway to lawful status for undocumented individuals who arrived in the United States when they were young. This population, known as the “DREAMers” since the first DREAM act was introduced in 2001, generally includes those who entered the U.S. unlawfully when they were minors, have been in the U.S. for several years, are either enrolled in school or have completed a high school diploma in the U.S., and have “good moral character” (i.e. no serious criminal history). 

Several bills were introduced by Congress in 2017 to address the DREAMers (see this Migration Policy Institute fact sheet for a concise summary of them along with estimates of the number of people eligible). The interactive map below provides the latest CSII estimates of the number of people currently eligible for one of these bills – the DREAM Act of 2017 – by U.S. Congressional District, as well as estimates from the Center for American Progress (CAP) of the economic gains that would stem from legalizing potentially eligible individuals already in the workforce.

Under the DREAM Act, undocumented individuals would first need to meet some basic age at arrival and length of residence requirements to be considered: they must have been under age 18 upon arrival and have lived continuously in the U.S. for at least four years. To be eligible for Conditional Permanent Resident (CPR) status, they must also either be enrolled in school or have a high school diploma (or equivalent), have good moral character, and pass a medical examination. From that point, those with CPR status would be eligible to apply for Legal Permanent Resident (LPR) status and eventually U.S. citizenship after meeting additional requirements around educational attainment, military service, or employment (again, see this Migration Policy Institute factsheet for a summary of the requirements).

The interactive map below provides the latest CSII estimates of both the number of individuals meeting the basic age at arrival and length of residence requirements, and the number eligible for CPR status under the DREAM Act of 2017. It also includes estimated gains in GDP from enactment of the DREAM Act, based on a scenario in which all those who meet the basic age at arrival and length of residency requirements attain CPR status, and half of them then achieve LPR status through the educational pathway noted above. While we have not generated estimates of the number of DREAMers that would be eligible for lawful status and the economic benefits that would accrue under the other bills currently under consideration, it is likely that their distribution across Congressional Districts would be similar.

We hope that this data grounded in Congressional Districts will be helpful to inform the civic debates that are currently underway across the nation about the policies being considered by Congress.
  

  

 

             

Interactive Map

 

Please note: This map is best viewed in the Google Chrome web browser.

 

Download the data file (Excel) >>

 

 

 

 

Download the data file (Excel) >>

 

 

Notes

The USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII) estimates are based on a pooled sample of the 2010-2014 American Community Survey (ACS) microdata from IPUMS-USA, University of Minnesota, www.ipums.org. The methodology involves first using the ACS data to estimate the total undocumented population in the U.S.; for detailed methodology on how we do that, including the use of conditional screens, country controls, and a stratified probability model, see here.

To determine, among the undocumented, who met the basic age at arrival and length of residence requirements set forth in the DREAM Act of 2017, we included all persons who were under age 18 upon arrival in the U.S., and last arrived in the U.S. more than four years prior to the survey. Among this group, individuals were determined to meet be eligible for Conditional Permanent Resident (CPR) status if they met any of the following criteria: 1.) were at least 18 years old and had a high school diploma (or equivalent); 2.) were at least 18 years old and enrolled in school (9th grade or higher only); or were between the ages of five and 17 (inclusive). While the text of the bill suggests that, among five to 17 year olds, only those with a high school diploma (or equivalent) or those enrolled in a school or educational program on track to attain a high school diploma are eligible for CPR status, we specify all five to 17 year olds as eligible. The reason for this is that the bill also indicates that removal will be stayed for children age 5 or older who are enrolled in school and otherwise eligible for relief (becoming eligible for CPR status once they reach 9th grade), and the vast majority of undocumented children under age 18 are enrolled in school. The implicit assumption, one also used by the Migration Policy Institute in its analysis of the Dream Act of 2017 is that anyone age five to 17 who is not enrolled in school will re-enroll in order to be eligible for relief. While the underlying data does not allow for the inclusion of the requirements around moral character or medical/health status in determining who is eligible for CPR status, the number of people not meeting these requirements is likely to be rather small so the omission of these requirements is not likely to have a large impact on our estimates.

The last step of methodology involved assigning the individual-level estimates of those meeting the basic age at arrival and length of residence requirements for the DREAM Act of 2017, and those eligible for CPR to Congressional Districts (115th Congress). To do so, we used a 2010 population-based crosswalk between Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs) and Congressional Districts from Mable/GeoCorr12. A geographic crosswalk was necessary because the ACS microdata includes only very limited geographic information, with the PUMA being the lowest level of geography attached to individuals. PUMAs contain a population of at least 100,000 while Congressional Districts have an average population of about 700,000. We randomly assigned individuals to Congressional Districts in proportion to the 2010 population distribution (taking care to insure that all households remained intact, that is, that individuals were assigned in household “clumps” since no household could be split between two Congressional Districts), and then aggregated the results by Congressional District to derive the final estimates presented in the interactive map. While this introduces some unknown degree of geographic error in the resulting estimates, it is likely to be relatively minimal given that most PUMAs are either entirely contained or largely contained in a single Congressional District. To caution against utilizing unreliable estimates, we include an asterisk and a note alongside the data for Congressional Districts with fewer than 50 unweighted survey respondents identified as meeting the basic age at arrival and length of residence requirements. We also do not report any data for Congressional Districts in which our estimates showed fewer than 500 individuals meeting these basic requirements.

Estimated congressional district GDP gains resulting from enactment of the Dream Act come from the Center for American Progress. The analysis is conducted by estimating the size of each Dreamer group (those who meet the basic eligibility requirements as well as those eligible for CPR status) who are in the workforce and applying that rate to the modeled state gains. Employment rates vary by state.

For a detailed methodology describing the modeled GDP gains, please see Francesc Ortega, Ryan Edwards, and Philip E. Wolgin, “The Economic Benefits of Passing the Dream Act” (Washington: Center for American Progress, 2017) available at https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/reports/2017/09/18/439134/economic-benefits-passing-dream-act/. For state-level estimates of dreamers in the workforce and GDP gains, please see Ryan D. Edwards, Francesc Ortega, and Philip E. Wolgin, “The State-by-State Economic Benefits of Passing the Dream Act” (Washington: Center for American Progress, 2017) available at https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2017/10/26/441298/the-state-by-state-economic-benefits-of-passing-the-dream-act/.

Estimated GDP gains are annual in 2014 dollars and represent the upper limit – if all those who immediately meet the basic age at arrival and length of residency reached CPR status, and the increased skill-level and productivity that would follow if half of those then achieving LPR status did so through the educational pathway. That said, given that the model only includes the 1.9 million immediately eligible Dreamers in the workforce, not those who will age into eligibility, it could be considered a conservative estimate. No estimates are reported for Congressional Districts in states with small numbers of individuals meeting the basic age at arrival and length of residence requirements of the DREAM Act. These include Alaska, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and West Virginia.

Acknowledgements

Manuel Pastor was responsible for generating the underlying estimates of the number of individuals eligible for the DREAM Act of 2017, Justin Scoggins prepared data for mapping, created the map, and coordinated the project, and Gladys Malibiran was responsible for the website and communications. We thank the California Wellness Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, and The California Endowment for their generous support of the CSII data and analytic capacities that made this project possible. We also thank the Center for American Progress for providing the estimates of GDP gains from enactment of the Dream Act by Congressional District.

Related Resources

  • Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII), University of Southern California
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