The DREAM Act could generate $66 billion and create 282,000 jobs in Texas by 2030, according to a new report (PDF) from the Center for American Progress.
The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act seeks to create a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to America as minors, provided they complete high school and then spend time in college or the military.
The report, authored by Juan Carlos Guzman and Raul C. Jara, finds that DREAM act beneficiaries are dispersed unevenly across the country, but states with higher numbers of undocumented workers, such as California and Texas, stand to benefit the most from the passage of the legislation.
“The economic impact is divided into direct and induced impacts. The direct impact is the economic changes that we would observe directly in the DREAMers, which is basically the change in their earnings potential. The induced impact is the economic activity that the increase in earnings would generate in the overall economy,” the report says.
There are approximately 325,000 individuals eligible for the DREAM Act in Texas, according to CAP’s report. By 2030, the report estimates that the DREAM Act could produce 282,470 new jobs in Texas and roughly $28.3 billion in new earnings. The report estimates that a full 84,362 of those jobs could be created by 2020.
“The study also comes after an August analysis by the Center for American Progress that concluded that if only 15 percent of Texans living in the state illegally were removed at once, it would mean an annual $11.7 billion loss for Texas’ gross domestic product,” the Texas Tribune‘s Julián Aguilar wrote. “That would increase to more than $77 billion if all 1.65 million illegal immigrants were deported at once.”
The report was calculated using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Community Survey from 2006 to 2010 as well as numbers from the Pew Hispanic Center.
