driving privilegesWhen President Barack Obama approved the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals millions of young people who had been brought to the United States illegally as children, or were born in the United States to parents who were themselves here illegally, breathed a sigh of relief. Under the program these young people will now be eligible for state programs, driver’s licenses, student loans and best of all, would not be subject to deportation.

The Immigration Policy Center estimated that California has the largest population of potential deferred action beneficiaries followed by Texas (226,700), Florida (85,750), New York (70,170), Illinois (67,460) and Arizona (53,880).

The non-partisan organization also calculated that up to 1.4 million undocumented young immigrants could eventually benefit from the program and that currently 936,930 already qualify to apply for it. It also said that roughly 68 percent of them are from Mexico while 13 percent are from other countries in North and Central America. About 8 percent are from Asia, 7 percent from South America, 2 percent from Europe, and 2 percent from other parts of the world.

Not all states are embracing the influx of new ‘citizens’ however and some are actively passing legislation to prevent the president’s plan from taking effect. This week Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed legislation preventing youth there from obtaining state driver’s licenses at all. But other states have already said they will welcome these new drivers, no matter the cost.

Recently Oregon and Georgia became the latest states to approve allowing these young people access to state services including state issued driver’s licenses. The Immigration Policy Center estimates there are 16,600 potential young people who qualify for deferred action in Oregon, and some 38,500 more in Georgia. All of these people will now qualify for state programs under the president’s plan and without the state actively preventing them, will likely integrate well into the existing system.