Some 400,000 young illegal immigrants have been approved for work permits and relief from deportation nearly a year after the White House offered the program for people who came into the country as children, a leading think-tank reported Wednesday.
The young immigrants known as DREAMers came from nearly 200 countries, but almost three-quarters of them were born in Mexico, according to a report by the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program using data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency.
Its Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program grants temporary, renewable work authorization and suspension of deportation to illegal immigrants who fulfill specific requirements. The program’s anniversary is Aug. 15.
More that half of the applicants were 20 or younger and more than a third were 18 or younger, according to Brookings Senior Fellow Audrey Singer and research analyst Nicole Prchal Svajlenka. The program was limited to 15- to 30-year-old immigrants.
Their report, “Immigration Facts: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,” is online at http://bit.ly/18t6Wsv
Singer and Svajlenka’s analysis accounts for 87 percent of all accepted applicants through June 30, 2013, according to a Brookings Institution news release.
They reported five major findings:
1. More than half a million people have applied for deferred action through June 2013; 72 percent have been approved, and 1 percent have been denied. The majority of the remaining applications are still under review.
The Immigration Policy Center estimated some 936,000 immigrants were immediately eligible at the program’s start.
2. Most of applicants were born in Mexico, and 25 other countries of birth have more than 1,000 applications.
The Brookings report show that deferred action applicants were born in 192 countries. In total, 74.9 percent of applicants were born in Mexico, followed by El Salvador (4 percent), Honduras (2.7 percent), Guatemala (2.5 percent), South Korea (1.5 percent), Peru (1.4 percent), Brazil (1.2 percent), Colombia (1.1 percent), Ecuador (1.0) and Philippines (0.7).
3. The distribution of applicants by state mirrors settlement patterns of all immigrants; applicants from East Coast states come from a more diverse set of origin countries.
California, Texas, New York, Illinois, and Florida have the most applicants through March 22, 2013. These states are among those with the largest foreign-born populations overall.
4. More than one-third of deferred action applicants were between 15 and 18. There are fairly even numbers of women and men, but female applicants are slightly older than males.
More than half (54 percent) of all applicants were under 21.
5. Nearly three-quarters of deferred action applicants have lived in the United States for at least 10 years and nearly one-third were age 5 or younger when they arrived.
Ninety-seven percent of the applicants came in the 1990s and 2000s. Fully 30 percent reported arriving between 1999 and 2001, which corresponds to a period of overall high immigration.
To qualify for the deferred action program, applicants must meet the following criteria:
— Arrived in the United States before age 16;
— Continuously resided in the United States without legal status since June 15, 2007;
— Younger than 31 as of June 15, 2012, and at least 15 at application (unauthorized immigrants under 15 but in removal cases also can apply);
— Currently enrolled in school, have graduated from high school or obtained a general development certificate (GED), or be an honorably discharged veteran;
— No felony conviction or multiple or serious misdemeanors and not a threat to national security or public safety.
Information on the deferred action program is available at http://1.usa.gov/14J3tGe