The DACA Population Numbers
President Donald Trump said he has “heard” varying numbers on the DACA population — from 650,000 to 3 million. In fact, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said there were 689,800 active DACA recipients as of Sept. 4, 2017.
DACA, which stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, was instituted in 2012 under the Obama administration and enabled certain individuals who had come to the United States illegally as children to avoid deportation proceedings and obtain work authorization for two years, subject to renewal. The Trump administration announced an end to the DACA program on Sept. 5, 2017, saying no new applications would be accepted and a “wind-down” would occur for current enrollees.
Congress a deal on what to do about DACA before a March 5 deadline set by the president. A bipartisan group of lawmakers in a cabinet meeting that they had “agreed to pursue four major areas yesterday of reform: securing our border, including, of course, the wall — which has always been included, it never changed; ending ‘chain migration’; canceling the visa lottery; and addressing the status of the DACA population.” He then rattled off a few different numbers on the DACA recipients.
