Civis Joins Amicus Briefs In Support of Constructive, Empathetic Immigration Policies
By Rich Lee
We care a lot about immigration policy at Civis; many of us are immigrants or have partners, parents, friends, or neighbors who came here to make America their home. Living and working with people from all walks of life is a fundamental part of the American experience, and the unique perspectives and traditions they bring enrich our lives and the lives of those around us.
To better understand the extent to which immigration plays a role in the lives of Civis staff, we surveyed our team and here’s what we found:
About two-thirds of respondents reported that they or someone in their family was born in another country and immigrated to the US:
And eighty-two percent of respondents reported that they interact daily with someone who immigrated to the US:
Not to mention, immigrants are massive contributors in our fast-growing field of analytics and data science: Individuals such as Daphne Koller, Andrej Karpathy, Fei Fei Li, Andrew Ng, Robert Tibshirani, Sebastian Thrun, Sergey Brin, and Jerry Yang continue to provide leadership and insight that benefits all Americans and our economy.
We have a personal stake in defending and encouraging practical immigration policies, and the significance of immigration in nearly all of our work and personal lives is why Civis signed onto an amicus curiae (“friend-of-the-court”) brief with 160 other leading companies earlier this year opposing the discriminatory and divisive travel ban. It’s also why we recently signed on to another amicus brief with 107 other companies opposing the rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program
Some notable facts from the brief:
Over 90% of Dreamers are employed and earn wages commensurate with their skill levels.¹ Dreamers are entrepreneurs: in one survey of Dreamers, 8% of respondents 25 years and older reported starting their own business — considerably more than the 3.1% for all Americans.² A large percentage of Dreamers are pursuing, or have completed, college degrees — including STEM degrees.³
Dreamers make significant contributions to our society, and as the brief notes, DACA allows them to continue their work without constantly looking over their shoulders: “the intangible benefits of the DACA program are undeniable and substantial: nearly 800,000 young people (Dreamers) who were brought to this country as children and know only this country as home may for the first time live in America and participate fully in all aspects of our society without the constant and crippling fear of deportation.”
Civis strongly supports the amicus brief opposing the rescission of DACA; for us, constructive, empathetic immigration policies positively affect the lives of all Americans. We ask you to add your voice (here or here) in support of such policies, and we heartily encourage those hearing the cases to recognize and safeguard these policies that make our country so innovative, optimistic, and welcoming.
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- Tom K. Wong et al., Results from 2017 National DACA Study 3–4.
- Wong 2017 Results, supra n.2, at 3; Tom K. Wong et al., “DACA Recipients’ Economic and Educational Gains Continue to Grow”, Center for American Progress, Aug. 28, 2017,
- Center for American Progress, Results of Tom K. Wong, United We Dream, National Immigration Law Center, and Center for American Progress National Survey 4 (2016),
