Ready to Stay: A Comprehensive Analysis of the US Foreign-Born Populations Eligible for Special Legal Status Programs and for Legalization under Pending Bills [cmsny.org]

By Donald Kerwin, José Pacas, and Robert Warren, Photo: Vic Hinterlang/Shutterstock, Center for Migration Studies, December 9, 2021

Executive Summary

This report offers estimates of US foreign-born populations that are eligible for special legal status programs and those that would be eligible for permanent residence (legalization) under pending bills. It seeks to provide policymakers, government agencies, community-based organizations (CBOs), researchers, and others with a unique tool to assess the potential impact, implement, and analyze the success of these programs. The report views timely, comprehensive data on targeted immigrant populations as an essential pillar of legalization preparedness, implementation, and evaluation. The report and the exhaustive estimates that underlie it, represent a first attempt to provide a detailed statistical profile of beneficiaries of proposed major US legalization programs and special, large-scale legal status programs. The report offers the following top-line findings:

• Fifty-eight percent of the 10.35 million US undocumented residents had lived in the United States for 10 years or more as of 2019; 37 percent lived in homes with mortgages; 33 percent arrived at age 17 or younger; 32 percent lived in households with US citizens (the overwhelming majority of them children); and 96 percent in the labor force were employed.
• The Citizenship for Essential Workers Act would establish the largest population-specific legalization program discussed in the report: 7.2 million (70 percent) of the total undocumented population would be eligible for legalization under the Act. Approximately two-thirds of undocumented essential workers reside in 20 metropolitan areas.
• The populations eligible for the original Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and for permanent residence on a conditional basis and removal of the conditions of permanent residence under the Dream Act of 2021 are not only ready to integrate successfully, but in most cases have already done so. A high percentage are long-term residents, virtually all have completed high school (or attend school), a third to one-half have attended college, and the overwhelming majority live in households with incomes above the poverty level.

[Please click here to read more and download the report.]