The day after the Administration announced its intention to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, experts throughout San Diego were already voicing their discontent and concern with the thousands of jobs that would be lost in San Diego as a result, as well as the financial instability it would cause for hundreds of San Diego businesses.
The San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce labeled the decision as “unfortunate,” and said that for California, the state with the largest number of DACA applications, there would be direct impacts on the workforce and consumer spending.
“This is very negative. We have to understand that the beneficiaries of this program are all of us, the whole country. This group of people, who also pay taxes, are important to the economy, and by turning them away now, there will be a very negative impact,” Paola Avila, Vice-President of International Business Affairs at the Chamber said.
The decision reached by Congress, and the uncertainty of whether there will or won’t be new reforms to help nearly 1 million people currently living in the U.S., about 40,000 of whom live in San Diego, has thousands of employers worried about the future of their workers and unsure as to what conditions they should include in the employment contracts of these immigrants who up until now had a right to work, but could lose that right sometime in the future.
“There will be no new permits, so what’s going to happen between now and March as far as those who already have the legal right to work? For us, as a business chamber that represents 2,500 companies, this causes a great deal of confusion; what’s going to happen at these companies? Will we be able to continue employing these people? Do we have to let them go? It’s not just about deportations, but also about a huge impact on jobs,” Avila said.
A group of more than 150 San Diego and Tijuana residents are making preparations to fly to Washington towards the end of the month to meet with members of Congress and convey how important “Dreamers” are to the region and their economic impact on the whole border region.
The mayor of San Diego, Mayor Kevin Faulconer, and Tijuana, Juan Manuel Gastélum, will also be traveling to Washington, with DACA beneficiaries as one of the key items on their agenda.
