you re absolutely right. i ll get into the analysis in a second. first i have to say this, what we just heard from jeff sessions was one of the most shameless presentations i ve heard and that s saying a lot these days. and some of what he said on the economy as you suggested veered from misleading into lie. and i ll be specific. but if you can zoom in on the statue of liberty right now, i would suspect she would be shedding a tear. this is a dark day for our country. look, when it comes to jobs, sessions just asserted that the dreamers, daca recipients are taking jobs from native born workers, there s zero evidence for that. completely unsubstantiated and in fact not the case based on the numbers that ali was citing, the fact these folks have been here since they were kids and many in the labor market. over 90% about 95 working or in school. he mentioned they were a drain on social security.
jeff sessions announcing that daca will end in six months, congress has six months in which to come up with some sort of alternative. the argument here is that it was done illegally as a memo by president obama when it is in the purview of congress to offer legislati legislation. can i show you a little bit about daca during the six month period they need to figure out what too do with existing participants. there a800,000 of them. this was created by president obama on june 5th, 2012 when congress was not able to come up with a viable plan for these people who had come to america as children. it s got about 800,000 people that are young documented immigrants. they are brought to the u.s. by their parents as children. there are certain rules you had to comply with to be part of daca. you have to have arrived in the united states before the age of 16. you must have lived in the united states since june 15th, 2007 and couldn t have been older than 30 when the program
the truth here is that the 800,000 daca recipients are very much at risk now. they have actually already been at risk during the past several months of the trump administration and he has deported people who have received daca participation. these are dreamers. one important point i want to point out on the legality issue, that past presidents, eisenhower, president reagan, bush senior, all used the same kind of authority deferred action, for this president and attorney general sessions now to say this is an unconstitutional act, that is preempting congress, that is just not accurate as a matter of historical fact and it s been done by both parties, democratic and republican administrations. but back here to your broader point. we re talking about a question of compassion, the attorney general used the same word and what is happening with the lives of those 800,000 people? what this their answer here? they don t have a solution and they are effectively kicking the political football do
the social security act wearies have told us in fact the opposite is the case, same with cbo s budgetary analysis, daca recipients seem to contribute more in revenues than they cost in spending. these are folks who disproportionately spend taxes and start businesses and this is a really a kicking in the own goal when it comes to helping the economy. let me ask you something, on the left you re seeing dnc chair tom perez outside of the white house leading a protest. work through this with me, this is some of the criticism that the administration has had. number one, that this wasn t president obama s job to do, that immigration is the purview of congress and congress should have done it, that they are facing legal challenges from a number of states so something would have likely happened. congress should actually be the ones to fix this. on the face of it, are those criticisms fair? i think that that he saw jeff
football with the lives of these young people. we do that. we play political football but with hurricane rescue, it would be nice if every bill were just a clean bill. political football politics. that s what it is. one thing about the politics, i think what it s going to take for congress to i think what it s going to take for congress to fulfill greg s optimistic protection there, i hope he s right, legislative functionality and courage and i have to say, those are two characteristics i haven t associated with this congress for a while. we ll see. we ll try to be optimists. thank you all. joining us now live, attorney general for the state of new mexico, a democrat, one of the 20 state attorney generals who sent a letter to president trump in july urging him to keep the dreamers program. sir, there s more than 8,000 dreamers recipients, daca recipients in new mexico. what s going to happen to them? clearly they are in panic but is