When Ken Cuccinelli, President Trump’s acting director of Citizenship and Immigration Services, visited The Wall Street Journal editorial page this week, he was asked what would become of the so-called Dreamer immigrants if the Supreme Court allows the administration to end DACA. “They essentially get moved over into the pool of—pick your estimate—22 million others who are here illegally,” Mr. Cuccinelli said. “They’re not at immediate risk for deportation, but we can’t sit here and say they won’t be deported.”
What is to be gained by willfully adding hundreds of thousands of productive men and women in the primes of their lives to the ranks of the undocumented by stripping them of the ability to live and work legally in the U.S.? These immigrants currently pay more than $3 billion in taxes every year, according to an analysis of census data by researchers at New American Economy, and are contributing to retirement programs like Social Security at a time when 77 million baby boomers are in the process of exiting the workforce. The unemployment rate is at a 50-year low, and employers are complaining about a labor shortage even as wages continue to rise. The Journal reported earlier this month that the number of job openings currently exceeds the number of unemployed Americans by 1.26 million. Perhaps now isn’t the best time to contemplate deporting our workers.
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