Legal Dreamers

Legal Dreamers

Legal Dreamers
January 31, 2022
The term Dreamers is often used to refer to foreign nationals who were brought to the United States as
children and lack lawful immigration status. This population has garnered much public and congressional
attention. There is broad-based but uneven public support for providing these individuals with lawful
permanent resident (LPR) status.
After Congress repeatedly considered but did not pass legislation to provide Dreamers with a means to
adjust to permanent status, the Obama Administration established Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
(DACA) in 2012. DACA enables its beneficiaries—unauthorized immigrants who first entered the United
States before June 15, 2017, and before reaching age 16, and also meet other requirements—to live in the
United States on a temporary, renewable basis. DACA recipients receive protection from removal and
may receive work authorization. They are not granted or put on a pathway to be granted LPR status. Since
DACA was implemented, and despite multiple bipartisan efforts, Congress has not passed legislation to
provide Dreamers with a pathway to adjust to LPR status.
More recently, attention to Dreamers has expanded to encompass a different population also at risk of
being removed from the United States, often after spending much of their childhood in the United States.
These individuals, commonly referred to as legal Dreamers or documented Dreamers, are children of
nonimmigrant (i.e., temporary) workers who face the prospect of aging out of lawful status or may have
already done so. The legal Dreamer population stems from the growth of the employment-based (EB)
queue, or backlog. This queue consists mainly of lawful U.S. temporary residents (i.e., nonimmigrants)
whose petitions for lawful permanent status have been approved but who must wait for a numerically
limited green card. Because of annual numerical limits and a 7% per-country ceiling, many such
prospective immigrants—particularly from major migrant-sending countries such as India and China—
must wait decades to receive LPR status. Waiting alongside them are any minor children who were
included on their parents’ immigration petitions, accompanied them to the United States, and
consequently grew up in the United States.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the temporary legal status of such children ends when
they reach age 21. Then, they face limited options. They can try to change to another nonimmigrant
status—such as a student or temporary worker—providing them additional time in lawful status but not
permanent legal status. Or, they can independently try to adjust to LPR status, typically through the INA’s
family-based or employment-based provisions, which, if approved, often results in years of additional
waiting time. Alternatively, they face the prospect of choosing between leaving the United States and
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returning to an unfamiliar birth country, or remaining in the United States as a now unauthorized alien
subject to removal.
Historically, this group has been omitted from DACA and proposed bills that would provide permanent
status to Dreamers, which typically would apply only to applicants who lack lawful immigration status.
Some contend that omitting legal Dreamers from these bills is unfair and akin to punishing them for
maintaining lawful status. They often point out that as long-term residents of U.S. communities and, in
many cases, graduates of American schools and universities, they can contribute considerably to the
United States.
While some advocates providing legal Dreamers with immigration relief cite bipartisan support, others
object to such legislation based on broader concerns about foreign workers displacing U.S. workers.
Opponents of increased immigration may also argue that giving LPR status to legal Dreamers would raise
permanent immigration levels beyond current statutory limits established by Congress. Others argue that
parents of legal Dreamers, knowing their children’s immigration status would be temporary, should not
have expected immigration relief to be provided.
Estimating the Population of Legal Dreamers
Official data on the legal Dreamer population size are unavailable. Also, as with Dreamers, no
established criteria define legal Dreamers. One analysis estimates the number of all children in the EB
queue at roughly 250,000, and the number of potential children at risk of aging out of legal status over the
coming two decades at roughly 100,000. This estimate does not account for new entrants to the EB queue
who would be at risk of aging out over this two-decade period, nor does it include those who have already
aged out and currently lack LPR status. Other estimates have emerged with specific proposed legal
Dreamer legislation. For example, one estimate for H.R. 6, a bill that would grant legal Dreamers
conditional permanent residence, suggested 190,000 individuals would meet the bill’s educational and
age-at-U.S.-entry requirements.
Selected Congressional Action
Some Members of Congress have demonstrated support for providing immigration relief to legal
Dreamers. In November 2021, 49 Members signed on to a bicameral letter to the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) on its proposed regulation to formally implement DACA. The letter asked the
Administration to expand the DACA criteria in two ways to include legal Dreamers: by not requiring that
DACA applicants lack lawful status, and by allowing individuals who arrived in the United States after
June 15, 2007, to qualify.
Some Members of Congress have also introduced bills addressing legal Dreamers. Some bills would
provide relief to the current population of legal Dreamers. H.R. 4331 and S. 2753, for example, would
allow certain children of nonimmigrant workers who graduate from college to adjust to LPR status
through a new immigrant visa category that is not numerically limited. H.R. 6 would make certain legal
Dreamers eligible for the same pathway to LPR status as other Dreamers addressed in the bill. Some bills
include age-out protections in order to prevent more people from ending up as future legal Dreamers.
These bills would amend the INA so that a child’s age for immigration purposes is fixed at the time their
parents’ immigrant petition is filed, rather than when a numerically limited green card becomes available
to their parents (which can be years or decades later).

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Author Information

Jill H. Wilson
William A. Kandel
Analyst in Immigration Policy
Analyst in Immigration Policy

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