Dream Act

Slightly more than 2.1 million unauthorized immigrant youth and young adults could be eligible to apply for legal status under the DREAM Act legislation pending in Congress, according to a new Migration Policy Institute analysis that offers the most recent and detailed estimates of potential beneficiaries by age, education levels, gender, state of residence and likelihood of gaining legalization.
Prepared by MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy, DREAM vs. Reality: An Analysis of Potential DREAM Act Beneficiaries, makes clear, however, that far fewer people would likely obtain legal status because of barriers limiting their ability to take advantage of the legislation’s educational and military routes to legalization. In the report, authors Jeanne Batalova and Margie McHugh estimate that only 38 percent — or 825,000 — of the 2.1 million potentially eligible DREAM Act beneficiaries likely would gain permanent legal status.

“Many potential DREAM Act beneficiaries would face difficulties in meeting the legislation’s higher education or military service requirements because of hardship paying for college tuition, competing work and family time demands and low educational attainment and English proficiency,” said McHugh, who is co-director of MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy.

According to the analysis, enactment of the DREAM Act would :

• Immediately make 726,000 unauthorized young adults who meet the legislation’s age, duration of U.S. residency and age at arrival requirements eligible for conditional legal status (with roughly 114,000 of them already eligible for permanent legal status after the six-year wait because they have at least an associate’s degree).

• Allow 934,000 children under 18 to age into conditional-status eligibility in the future, provided they earn a U.S. high school diploma or GED.

• Extend the possibility of conditional status, provided certain educational milestones are achieved, to another 489,000 unauthorized immigrants between ages 18-34 who meet the legislation’s age and residency requirements but lack a high school diploma or GED.

Three-quarters of potential DREAM Act beneficiaries reside in 10 states – led by California with 553,000 (or 26 percent of total); Texas, 258,000 (12 percent); Florida, 192,000 (9 percent); New York, 146,000 (7 percent); and Arizona, 114,000 (5 percent). The other top 10 states are: Illinois (95,000); New Jersey (90,000); Georgia (74,000); North Carolina (51,000); and Colorado (46,000). The report also provides estimates for Virginia, Nevada, Maryland, Oregon, Utah and Nebraska.



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