Many arrived late to apply for Daca, the process that seeks to recognize those who arrived without papers as children with legal status to remain in the country. Others did not reach the deadline to register before this process entered into a legal dispute in court. All of them were left with one option, to open their own businesses.
A recent study by the New American Economy organization revealed that nearly a million undocumented youth have found success opening their own business ventures. Some have opted for consultancies, others, to start in the service area: restaurants, beauty salons, various sales sites. This organization estimates that there are 10,315,559 undocumented immigrants in the country, of which 823,750 have started their own business.
Although the laws of this country prohibit hiring people without immigration papers, nothing prohibits them from starting their own business as independent contractors. Much of that growth is driven by millennials and younger immigrants, said Iliana Perez, director of research and entrepreneurship at Immigrants Rising, a San Francisco-based advocacy organization that works with immigrant youth who are in the country without legal status, according to an article by Los Angeles Times.
This year, an estimated 100,000 immigrant youth, most in California, graduated high school without legal status and without the benefit of DACA, which means that many have been shut out of the labor market. Some will go to college. Others may find work without authorization and with false identification, according to the report.
In 2016, Immigrants Rising launched an Entrepreneurship Fund that provided more than $400,000 in grants to entrepreneurs who lack legal status. In 2021, the state awarded the organization a Social Entrepreneurs for Economic Development Grant of $5.41 million, which allowed the organization to dispense microgrants and provide technical assistance to nearly 800 immigrant entrepreneurs in California in 2021 and 2022.
The Times report mentions the young Alessandro Negrete, who lost the opportunity to regularize under Daca and opened his own consulting business, Alessandro Consulting, which has given him the opportunity to earn a six-figure salary and establish himself in the neighborhood of Boyle Heights.
More undocumented Latinos are finding their way independently.
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