More than a hundred U.S. companies, including some of the country's largest businesses, told the Supreme Court on Oct. 4 that allowing President Donald Trump to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, immigration program will cause significant harm to the economy and hurt job growth.
Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.'s Google LLC, Verizon Communications Inc., International Business Machines Corp., Target Corp., Intel Corp., Starbucks Corp. and 118 other companies, as well as 18 business associations across the country, outlined the economic impact of rescinding DACA, which provides legal protection for young people brought into the U.S. as undocumented child migrants, in an amicus curiae or friend-of-court brief submitted to the Supreme Court.
"Eliminating DACA will inflict serious harm on U.S. companies, all workers, and the American economy as a whole," the firms wrote, adding that the potential knock-on effects of such a move will result in $215 billion to $460.3 billion in economic losses and about $60 billion to $90 billion in lost tax revenue over the next decade.
Social Security and Medicare would lose out on $40.9 billion over 10 years, while businesses will face $6.3 billion in added costs should they need to replace their DACA-protected employees, or Dreamers, the companies said.
At least 18 of the top 25 Fortune 500 companies employ DACA-protected employees, while 6% of all Dreamers have started their own businesses creating an estimated 86,000 jobs, the firms wrote.
"Dreamers have become essential contributors to American companies and the American economy," the firms said.
The Trump administration rescinded DACA in 2017, arguing that former President Barack Obama did not have the authority to implement the program. The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on the program in November and is expected to decide on the case by the end of June 2020.
The filing came on the heels of a separate amicus brief submitted Oct. 2
There are 669,080 active DACA recipients across the U.S. as of April, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data.
