Nearly 80,000 people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program who were released into the country within the program's first few years were found to have arrest records, according to a recent report from the New York Post.
Data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) shows that the majority of those released into the country at the time of their arrests were between the ages of 19 and 22.
DACA was established in June 2012 by the Obama administration to protect undocumented minors from being deported. President Joe Biden recently announced the expansion of some deportation protections as well as employment opportunities for DACA recipients. The Biden administration is also expected to give some recipients access to federal health insurance which would impact 100,000 people.
Here are some of the numbers from USCIS:
- Around 79,000 illegal migrants with prior arrests were granted DACA status between June 2012 and October 2019
- 765,166 of the 888,818 DACA applicants were approved (10.38% having arrest records)
- 67,861 applicants with a prior arrest were either approved or denied
- 15,903 who were approved later faced arrest
- 41 individuals who were granted DACA status had been arrested over 10 times
According to the report, the majority of arrests came from 19 to 26 year olds from Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Peru. Arrests involve various crimes, including for driving offenses, theft, drugs and immigration violations.