Killing Daca is cruel, and bad economics

US President Donald Trump's decision to kill Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) - never mind the attempt to obscure things with a meaningless delay - is, first and foremost, a moral obscenity: throwing out 800,000 young people who are Americans in every way that matters, who have done nothing wrong, basically for racial reasons.

But it is also worth noting that Attorney General Jeff Sessions tried to sell it with junk economics, claiming that the so-called Dreamers - or Daca beneficiaries - are taking American jobs. No, they are not - even if we leave aside the question of who's an American. Daca is very much a boon to the rest of the US population, and killing it will make everyone worse off.

To see why, first note that whatever you think about the economics of less-educated immigrants - most of the evidence suggests that they do not depress wages, but that is another discussion - none of it applies to Dreamers. Their educational and behavioral profile, as think-tank Cato Institute notes, does not resemble the average immigrant, let alone the average undocumented immigrant. They look like H-1B visa holders, that is, skilled immigrants whom we have specifically allowed in because they help the economy.