I’ve only ever wanted to be a cop.
When I was in third grade, growing up in Park City, a police officer who volunteered at my elementary school helped my family buy me a pair of running shoes they couldn’t afford so I could compete in a track meet. That gift made my eyes light up. From that moment on, my goal was to help my community by serving on the police force myself.
But a few years later, my parents, immigrants from Mexico, told me I was undocumented — that I had no legal status in the U.S. And, as my high school graduation approached, I learned that Utah barred noncitizens from serving on the police. I was crushed, instead working part-time for the police department in a non-badge role while in college. Last year, Utah decided to let noncitizens apply for police jobs — but only if they had at least a Green Card.
Which excludes me, unfortunately. I’m not only a Dreamer — one of the millions of undocumented immigrants brought here as children — I’m also among the 800,000 recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this month and has allowed us to stay in the U.S. to study and work.
Like most DACA beneficiaries, I’m incredibly grateful for the program. Next month, the Fifth Circuit Court will hear oral arguments on a case that will determine DACA’s future. If the U.S. court strikes down DACA, this will pull the rug out from under all of us who’ve been doing our best to build lives here.
There’s only one solution left for us: for Congress to swiftly pass bipartisan legislation opening up a pathway to citizenship for us and other undocumented immigrants who can show they’ve worked hard, obeyed the laws and paid taxes.
It’s not just a one-sided ask, either. America needs our hard work, our tax dollars and our spending power. In Utah alone, there are nearly 16,000 DACA-eligible residents, 95 percent of whom are employed. We create $320 million in household income and pay $60 million in taxes, $25 million of that being state and local. We have a total spending power of $260 million.
Of Utah immigrants more generally — both documented and undocumented — 14,500 of us are entrepreneurs generating $350 million annually. We make up 40 percent of workers in services to buildings and dwellings, nearly 20 percent of workers in restaurants and food services, 36 percent of cooks, 30 percent of miscellaneous production workers, nearly 30 percent of construction laborers, nearly 25 percent of janitors and building cleaners and 10 percent of health care workers.
On the national level, of the 1.1 million DACA-eligible Americans, 95 percent of us are employed and nearly 47,000 of us are entrepreneurs. We pay $6.2 billion in taxes and have a total spending power of $20.2 billion. And as the U.S. recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and faces labor shortages in key areas like farming and healthcare, our hands, brains and hearts are needed more than ever.
That’s why it’s so important that anyone with a stake in Utah’s economic future urge our state’s reps in D.C. to get behind a pathway to citizenship for us at once. And that legislation should be bipartisan, so it’s durable, and should also ensure border safety and security.
Such a law would mean safeguarding the future workforce, both Utah’s and the nation’s. It would mean that undocumented folks would finally have a stable, permanent foundation upon which to build careers and families. And it would mean that we Dreamers could finally pursue our dreams without fear they’ll be snatched away from us after all our hard work.
Oh, one more thing — it would mean that I would finally be able to try to become a cop, like the one who helped me and my family so many years ago. I even intend to help a few kids buy sneakers — to help pay it forward. That’s the American way, right?
Enrique Sanchez
Enrique Sanchez is the intermountain state director for the American Business Immigration Coalition. He has a degree in political science from the University of Utah and in criminal justice from Salt Lake Community College.
