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DREAM Act Is a Small Investment with a Large Return
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By Rep. Mike Honda
At the peak of America’s recession, policymakers have a responsibility to seek out the low-hanging fruit, in terms of legislation, that has the potential to boost the economy. Committed to this responsibility, we recently passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in Congress to stimulate the country’s potential. The bill bolsters bold infrastructure projects across the country — modernizing health care, improving schools, retrofitting rails, bridges and roads, and investing in clean energy technologies — investments which will reinvigorate industry and breathe new life into job-deprived municipalities.
Beyond our pursuit of physical infrastructure upgrades, our obligation as policymakers applies also to low-hanging fruit in terms of investments in human potential. That is one of the reasons why I reintroduced the DREAM Act in Congress. It is legislation which would also stimulate our economy at this most critical juncture.
Each year, tens of thousands of potential new taxpayers and higher wage earners enter our job market, yet we undermine their ability to contribute meaningfully to our economy. Our high schools are graduating roughly 65,000 undocumented students each year, and these thousands are entering the marketplace far from equipped to improve their circumstances or contribute meaningfully to our economy.
Our current law doesn’t make sense. After funding these 65,000 students through K-12, we leave them unsupported by barring them from receiving federal aid for college. As a result, these high school graduates will make only half the earnings a college graduate will make — at $600 a week instead of $1,000 a week — and will suffer a higher unemployment rate than college graduates — at 9 percent instead of 4 percent.
Had these students been able to receive, and later pay back, federal loans for university training and eventually a college diploma, they would be able to contribute over $9,000 annually to our economy — that is, roughly $5,300 more in taxes and $3,900 less in government expenses (i.e., social services made available to the general public).
The DREAM Act, which I am cosponsoring, makes it possible for 65,000 high school graduates, annually, to start on the road toward contributing in a more financially substantive way by providing legal access to loans. Beyond access to financing for college, the legislation makes possible a formal pursuit for legal status for students residing in the U.S. for five years or longer. This, too, has important implications for our economy as studies have consistently shown that undocumented immigrants who receive legal status move on to significantly better jobs, thus broadening the tax base, and improving their capacity to contribute economically to society. For example, wages increase 15 percent over a five-year time period for immigrants legalized under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.
The DREAM Act makes this upward mobility possible — and, consequently, increased financial returns
to our economy – by creating a path for undocumented immigrant youths, who entered the U.S. as children, to obtain legal permanent-resident status if, and only if, they graduate from high school and go on to college or military service.
Economic reasons aside, however, the bill, whose previous Republican leadership set the stage for its current bipartisan support, makes logical and moral sense too. Why school our young through Grade 12, but then hinder them in pursuing their own potential? The College Board’s recently released report captures the tenor of the moral imperative here: “Young Lives on Hold: The College Dreams of Undocumented Students.” Indeed, we cannot put our economy on hold given the vast untapped potential here, nor can we put on hold the lives of America’s young.
The irony behind the title of the DREAM Act is that we are not remotely dreamy-eyed with what we are proposing. The reality is that we have 65,000 high school graduates ready each year to contribute to our economy, but without the mechanisms to do so. Providing legal means and loan guarantees, as the DREAM Act proposes to do, is a small investment with a large return. Tens of thousands of high school graduates stand ready and waiting to help our economy. It is about time we let them do so.
Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif. serves on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies, and is a former teacher, school principal and school board member.
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