This Week in Immigration Reform — Week Ending March 25

Week Ending March 25

This week in immigration: New report shows 6.1 million U.S citizens live with a DAPA-eligible family member; USCIS provides updated statistics on DACA recipients; and the American Action Forum looks at the costly proposal required to remove all undocumented immigrants within two years.

New Center for American Progress study highlights U.S. citizens directly affected by administrative relief: With a decision coming within the next few months in United States v. Texas, the Center for American Progress released a new report this week that more than 6.1 million U.S. citizens currently live with a DAPA-eligible family member. California and Texas alone account for nearly half of these individuals, though all 50 states have a minimum of 5,000 U.S. citizens impacted by the upcoming Supreme Court case. The report notes that the true number of U.S. citizens living with potential administrative relief recipients is almost certainly higher than they report, as the study does not account for citizen family members of people eligible for DACA or expanded DACA, and also doesn’t account for U.S. citizen children or other family members who do not live in the same household as a DAPA-eligible individual.

USCIS releases updated DACA data: USCIS this week released updated statistics for DACA applications showing that as of December 31, 2015, there are 713,266 people who have received DACA. The USCIS data includes numbers of applicants by country of origin and by state of residence. The USCIS data is available here, while state-specific data on potential DACA and DAPA eligible individuals can be found here.

New American Action Forum report finds it would cost more than $400 billion to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants: A new paper by the center-right policy institute, American Action Forum, describes the personnel and infrastructure implications of removing all 11.3 million undocumented immigrants in a two-year time frame. According to the research, it would cost at least $400 billion in new federal spending and reduce U.S. GDP by about $1 trillion.  A Wall Street Journal opinion piece on the study concludes that the disruption to the U.S. economy of such a proposal would be close to the decline of GDP from the 2008 recession.