Apple and The Dreamers

In the first year of his presidency, Donald Trump announced he would end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programa policy enacted during the Obama administration that protected the foreign-born children of undocumented immigrants from deportationin six months if Congress did not act to make it permanent. The 800,000 or so immigrants covered by DACA were often called Dreamers, because many were young people pursuing the American dream of higher education, careers, and public service.

Dreamers came from many global regions. According to a 2017 report by the Pew Foundation, about 94 percent of all DACA-eligible immigrants were born in Mexico, Central or South America. Three percent were born in Asia, and most of the rest hailed from countries in the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa. The highest concentration of Dreamers lived in California and Texas. Most DACA recipients were 25 years old or less, and about half were enrolled in high school or college at least part-time. The half a million or so Dreamers in the labor force were concentrated in sales, office, and administrative support positions, and many worked for the top 25 Fortune 500 firms. If these individuals were deported, the potential loss of talent would be significant.

The corporate community responded swiftly to the threat posed to the DACA program. Among the corporate leaders calling for action was Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple. Cookalong with the CEOs of Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix, AirBnB, and Lyftwrote a letter to the president, the speaker of the House, and leading legislators from both parties expressing support for DACA.

For its part, Apple employed around 250 Dreamers. They hailed from many countries and worked for the company in 28 states in customer support roles, as engineers, and in research and development. At the same time Cook was working with other industry leaders, he expressed his support for Dreamers at Apple in a memo addressed to all employees. America promises all its people the opportunity to achieve their dreams through hard work and perseverance, he wrote. At Apple, weve dedicated ourselves to creating products that empower these dreams. And at our best, we aspire to be part of the promise that defines AmericaI am deeply dismayed that Dreamers working for Apple may soon find themselves cast out of the only country theyve ever called home.

Nationally, the threat to DACA posed difficult challenges for businesses, like Apple, that employed Dreamers. Employers that intentionally continued to employ Dreamers with expired DACA permits would face steep penalties, fines, or even jail time. Businesses that did not lay off Dreamers who were ineligible for employment due to an expired permit would be fined $548 to $4,384 per unauthorized worker for the first offense. Additional violations could result in fines and up to ten years in jail.

Although employers could be penalized for hiring or retaining Dreamers with expired permits, they also could not discriminate against individuals who were still legally protected by the DACA program. Legal experts advised employers that if they asked employees about their DACA status, or prematurely fired or denied employment to a DACA permit holder, their company could be sued for damages for illegal job discrimination. The Department of Justice also counseled employers that it would be illegal to take back a job offer because someones work authorization was set to expire in the future.

While employers were responsible for verifying the immigration status of their employees before they were hired, they could not legally ask for information beyond what was included on the I-9 form, which asked prospective employees to demonstrate that they were eligible to work. Prospective employees could present one of several documents to show eligibility, including a DACA permit; once eligibility had been documented, the employer was not required to investigate further. The government relied on employers to keep track of the expiration of employment authorization documents. However, some employers did not continue to check eligibility documents after the initial hire. According to Daniel Brown, a Washington D.C.-based immigration lawyer and former Homeland Security official, The odds of any particular employer ever being audited are fairly low. That being said, we dont know what the government might do immediately or in the future in terms of enforcement. With more than seven million businesses in the United States, immigration agents would find it difficult to audit each one.

Employers, including Apple, were faced with managing their talent in the context of an uncertain and shifting legal landscape. The Dreamers comprised a significant source of talent for American businesses. The CATO Institute reported in 2017 that complying with a decision to end DACA would cost employers $6.3 billion dollars because of the expenses associated with recruiting, hiring, and training employees to replace displaced Dreamers. More broadly, both the private and public sectors would be negatively impacted by the loss of purchases and taxes contributed by the Dreamers.

Required Consider/incorporate your responses into the analysis section of your brief.

1. Do you consider being a Dreamer a form of workplace diversity? How is it similar to and different from other kinds of workplace diversity discussed in this chapter?
2. What are the benefits and risks to employers, such as Apple and others mentioned in this case, of continuing to hire or employ Dreamers?
3. Beyond employers, which stakeholders benefit, and which are harmed when a business hires Dreamers?
4. Do you agree with Apples response to the public policy threat to DACA? What else should Apples managers do now, and why?
5. If you are a human resources manager at Apple, what steps would you take (or not take) if DACA protections were rescinded by the government (a Federal Court in Texas struck down the DACA program in July 2021)?