The nation's ability to survive the Covid-19 pandemic does not depend on continuing the DACA amnesty, despite a major attempt to suggest otherwise in the elite East Coast media this week.
As always, the numbers in the debate have to be put in context.
The media offensive was driven by a study that claimed that 29,000 health care workers are DACA recipients. Therefore, it was assumed, the ability to care for Americans felled by the virus would be put in jeopardy if the Supreme Court rules in June that Pres. Trump has the right to end the amnesty.
But while 29,000 may sound like a lot, it amounts to only about two-tenths of one percent of the nation's health care workers, pointed out Dr. Steven Camarota reporting on his own study in National Review.. (His full report can be read at https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/coronavirus-crisis-daca-health-care-workers-facts/.
The impetus for the media offensive was a study put out by the Center for American Progress (CAP), which is a long-time leader for immigration expansion and rewards for illegal migration. Camarota explained:
The Washington Post and The Guardian amplified CAP’s claim, while the New York Times published an op-ed by lawyers in the health-care field citing the study to claim in that [t]he administration is preparing to deport DACA recipients and that this would greatly impact the fight against the current pandemic because DACA recipients are 'front-line medical' workers who are desperately needed right now. . . .
Even accepting the CAP number of 29,000, it translates to just 0.2 percent of the nation's 14.8 million health-care workers, based on 2018 Census Bureau data and using CAP's definitions. . . . That can only be described as trivial.
Camarota noted that 352,000 workers are currently unemployed in the same health-care occupations that the DACA amnesty recipients occupy.
So if DACA recipients suddenly left, it looks like there are plenty of health-care workers to replace them.
In the all-important field of nursing, Camarota noted that DACA nurses are just 0.1% of the 3.3 million registered nurses working in this country according to the latest government data.
As with nearly every field in which foreign workers are said to be essential, there are many qualified Americans who are looking for a job but can't find one -- 41,000 unemployed registered nurses in the most recent government data, and 860,000 nurses and technicians who are out of the labor force entirely and, thus, not counted as "unemployed."
So there is a huge pool of people who can be drawn upon if a few thousand DACA nurses and technicians were deported.
And the chances are almost none for any one of those DACA health-care workers to be deported if the Supreme Court rules that the President can strip them of their amnesty, Camarota explained.
I want to be clear that putting the number of DACA health-care workers in perspective does not in any way minimize or dismiss the courage of those DACA workers who truly are in the frontlines of treating the victims of the extremely contagious and highly lethal virus.
But the large number of human interest stories in the nation's media about the indispensability of "undocumented" workers during this health crisis is a propaganda effort for amnesty whose credibility is not backed by the numbers.
ROY BECK is Founder & President of NumbersUSA
P.S. Foreign-born health-care workers are needed by their own countries. See my blog at: https://www.numbersusa.com/blog/stop-raiding-poor-countries-doctors-nurses-they-need-pandemic
