Today, more DACA recipients are homeowners than ever before. Still, their future in the country remains uncertain, and this uncertainty threatens to undermine their many positive contributions to U.S. society and the economy.
The most recent version of the Center for American Progress’s (CAP) annual survey of DACA recipients highlights their economic advancement: 30.7% of the survey’s participants have purchased a home since being approved for DACA, or about 167,000 of 544,690 DACA recipients.1
The estimated number of homeowners with DACA status has fluctuated over the years, but data from 2023 illustrates a clear spike in home purchases. The table below estimates the total number of DACA homeowners per year based on the proportion of survey participants who responded that they had purchased a home and the number of active DACA recipients around the survey period.
| Year | Percent of Survey Participants Who Purchased Homes | Average Age of Survey Participants | Total Active DACA Recipients | Estimated DACA Homeowners | 95% Confidence Interval Lower/Upper Bound |
| 2023 | 30.7 | 31.8 | 544,690 | 167,220 | 146,576 / 189,116 |
| 2022 | 17.7 | 29.2 | 589,660 | 104,370 | 89,569 / 121,116 |
| 2021 | 16.5 | 28.2 | 611,470 | 100,893 | 87,012 / 115,384 |
| 2020 | 20.4 | 28.2 | 636,390 | 129,824 | 115,250 / 145,351 |
| 2019 | 13.6 | 26.5 | 649,070 | 88,274 | 75,357 / 102,164 |
| 2018 | 13.7 | 25.7 | 699,350 | 95,811 | 81,754 / 111,476 |
| 2017 | 15.7 | 25.2 | 689,800 | 108,299 | 99,538 / 117,542 |
Using data from the 2018-2019 American Community Survey, CAP estimated that in 2021, DACA recipients owned more than 68,000 homes across 40 states (homeownership rates were unavailable for the remaining 10 states). This number may be underrepresented because many DACA recipients likely fall into what the Census Bureau calls a “Hard-to-Count Population.”
Several factors, including age and access to loans, likely contribute to this spike in home ownership. DACA recipients’ average age reached 31.8 years in 2023, which continues to inch closer to the United States’ average first-time home buyer age of 36. Relatedly, one-third of DACA recipients also now have U.S. citizen children—a higher proportion than ever before.
In recent years, lawmakers have also expanded DACA recipients’ access to loans to purchase homes. Three years have passed since the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) made DACA recipients eligible for FHA mortgages. Since then, legislation introduced in Congress has sought to protect DACA recipients’ eligibility in the long term.
DACA recipients’ homeownership has generated over $760 million in mortgage payments—a sum that will be lost if the DACA program ends, not to mention the loss of local property taxes generated by these properties.
Homeownership also positively impacts educational achievement, health, civic participation, and crime rates. By purchasing homes, DACA recipients thus contribute to the stability of their families and neighborhoods.
The Supreme Court will rule on the DACA program’s legality later this year. Until then, recipients will continue living in uncertainty. When the time comes for the Supreme Court to finally make a decision, DACA recipients’ many positive contributions to U.S. society and—as illustrated by their homeownership rates, the economy—should be front and center.
- The survey’s relatively small sample size of 560 may limit the reliability of this assumption. However, a confidence interval based on CAP’s survey results indicates that with 95% certainty, the number of DACA recipients who are homeowners falls between 146,576 and 189,116. ↩︎