For my final Project I would like to map the number of children who have been accepted by the United State’s government in the memorandum called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). This memorandum allows immigrant children to legally live in the United States. I chose this topic because not many maps if any have been created on this topic since it is fairly new. This topic also interests me because I come from an immigrant family and it is difficult to migrate to this country and not be legally able to live here.

I want this map to be informative to people who have a passion in immigrant studies. Since it is hard to find information about this topic I want my audience to be anyone interested in immigration policy and overall government officials so that they can see the states that have the most migrant children.

The type of map I want to create is a Cholorpleth map or a proportional symbol map because these types of maps are more suited for my information since they are whole numbers. A Cholorpleth map would be useful because different colors would definitely help differentiate where migrant families live. A proportional symbol map would also be suitable since some states have higher populations of migrant children than others. The scope of map would be the 50 states because migrant children live all over the United States and since I have information I might be able to include US territories.

The Data I have found is from U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services. The year I am using is the 2014 information because it has the up to date information of the amount of accepted DACA children. The data has information on all 50 states and it is very complex since it has a big range. I think the information portrayed is very accurate because the states with the largest numbers are really the destination points for many immigrant children.   

The basemap I need for my map is the United States, Alaska and Hawaii and may include the US territories. I want to start by adding my data to an excel sheet that way the process to make my map is easier. I also want to have my basemap ready and within the next week either my color schemes ready or my symbol to really start working on my map. My main challenge is focusing on what kind of map I want to create. Another challenge is working with the large range that my data has because several states have really large numbers. Lastly, will be the amount of time I have to finish the map because it takes a long time out of class to work on these maps so they look professional. 

This is a map that is closely related to my topic but it is out of date because this is what the government thought the map would look like after DACA was passed. 

Link to my DATA