The U.S. economy needs immigrants
The U.S. is dealing with a severe worker shortage. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, there are 9.5 million job openings in the U.S., but only 6.6 million unemployed workers. Even if every unemployed person in the country found a job, there would still be nearly 3 million open jobs across the United States.
While mixed-status families already contribute billions in federal, state, and local taxes, FWD.US estimates that permitting undocumented spouses to work legally would increase their tax contributions by $5 billion.
Politically-speaking, Biden needs a “DACA moment”
In a recent New York Times-Siena College poll, 46% of Latino registered voters backed Trump and 40% supported Biden. Biden’s support among Black and women registered voters has also shrunk since 2020, with women now breaking evenly for the two candidates. Overall, 10% of registered voters who once backed Biden said they plan to vote for Trump in 2024.
In 2012, President Obama faced a similar challenge before creating DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Obama had been losing support among Latino voters in the wake of his “Deporter-In-Chief” immigration approach. In June 2012, President Obama announced DACA and the Obama-Biden ticket soared to victory with 71% of the Latino vote on Election Day.
In fact, this policy is needed to protect people with DACA today
Some 90,000 DACA recipients are married to U.S. citizens. With the Supreme Court set to decide the future of DACA, the work permit proposal may be crucial to ensure they can remain with their loved ones.
This policy is widely popular
According to a Lake Research Partners survey, 65% of likely 2024 voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin support work permits for undocumented immigrants — including long-term workers, farm workers, Dreamers, and spouses of U.S. citizens. White swing voters (69%), Democrats (86%), Mexican Americans (80%), and Black voters (70%) support it by even larger margins.
Candidates who back extending work permits to long-term immigrants are rewarded with stronger voter enthusiasm. Voters in mixed-status families, Mexican Americans, voters under the age of 30, Democrats, white swing voters, and independents all expressed greater interest in showing up to elect candidates who champion this policy.
Hundreds of leaders representing U.S business, labor, local government, faith, civil rights, and family voices are backing this policy change, in addition to senators and Members of Congress.
This change is legally sound, requiring just a simple update to existing policy
Since 2008, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has granted work permits to nuclear relatives of U.S. servicemen and women, under authority Congress previously granted to the Department of Homeland Security. Two discreet updates to the USCIS policy manual could expand the group to include nuclear relatives of all U.S. citizens.
