DACA: Here's What Rescinding The Program Could Cost The American GDP

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Tuesday that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which extends protections to undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children — allowing them to work legally — will be rescinded.

Starting Wednesday, the administration will not accept any new applications, and anyone whose registration expires in the next six months will have until Oct. 5 to apply for a two-year extension.

After the announcement was made, President Trump issued a lengthy statement saying his administration will resolve the DACA issue "with heart and compassion." Trump urged Congress to act on immigration reform and said that the phasing out of DACA is a "gradual process." Existing work permits will be honored until their expiration date, and applications already in the pipeline and extensions for those nearing expiration will be processed.

Late Tuesday, Trump tweeted that Congress now has six months to legalize DACA, and if it can't, he will "revisit" the issue.

Also See: Obama Calls Trump's DACA Decision 'Cruel' And Contrary To Common Sense

Nearly 800,000 people have benefited from the DACA program, and some estimates say that ending the program would result in a loss of more than $400 billion from the American GDP over the next decade. That estimate comes from the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning group that is pro-immigration.

According to the latest data released by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, almost 790,000 people were DACA recipients through March 2017.

California had the highest number of recipients, with 222,795, followed by Texas, with 124,300 recipients.

To calculate the GDP loss, CAP relies on a 2016 survey that found 87 percent of DACA recipients were employed nationally, however, since the survey did not include a state breakdown, CAP uses the 87 percent figure to calculate GDP loss on the state level. CAP uses information from one of its previous reports to identify the contributions of each unauthorized worker to the state GDP.

For California, the state with the largest number of DACA recipients, CAP estimates an $11.6 billion annual GDP loss. For Texas, CAP estimates that figure to be $6.2 billion.

Pew estimates that a total of about 1.1 million unauthorized immigrants are eligible for the benefits and about 78 percent of those potentially eligible have applied for the program.

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