Uncertainty about DACA May Undermine its Positive Impact on Health for Recipients and their Children

• In Event: 3149 - Understanding the Social, Legal, and Political Ramifications of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)

Abstract

Undocumented immigrants and their children have worse self-reported health than documented immigrants and U.S. citizens. Some evidence suggests that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which granted some rights to undocumented immigrants who arrived as children, improved the wellbeing of recipients and their children in the three years after the program was introduced. However, DACA is subject to presidential discretion, and the U.S. presidential campaign that began in 2015 introduced substantial uncertainty regarding the program’s future. We examine whether DACA’s health benefits persisted beyond 2015 using the 2007-2017 waves of the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) and dynamic treatment effects models. Our results show that self-reported health improved significantly for Latina/o DACA-eligible immigrants and for their children from 2012-2015 but worsened after 2015. We conclude that the limited and politically contingent nature of the DACA program eroded the program’s health benefits not only for eligible immigrants, but also had intergenerational impacts on the health of their children.

Authors

• Caitlin Patler, University of California-Davis

• Erin R. Hamilton, The University of California, Davis

• Kelsey Meagher, UC Davis

• Robin Savinar, University of California, Davis