Barack Obama's immigration gamble
Shortly after the review was announced, she acknowledged that halting some deportations could spark political blowback. But she noted that Congress provides only enough money to deport about 400,000 people each year, and there are an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. The new policy, she said, is less risky than the one she inherited.
“I think the risk is greater if we don’t have the ability or facilities to even pick up those who’ve committed crimes and move them into deportation proceedings,” Napolitano said in response to a question from POLITICO. “You had illegal immigrants who committed crimes. Some of them very serious crimes — murder, rape, armed robbery. And they’d complete their sentences, and they’d be released back into the community as if nothing had happened. There was no way to systemically put a flag on them and say, ‘They’re not getting out. They’re going right … into removal.’”
Continue ReadingAt a recent online forum hosted by Latino websites, Obama stressed his support for overhauling immigration law and for narrower measures such as the DREAM Act, which would offer a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children and now attend college or serve in the military. The administration has advocated both changes, but the legislation has stalled in Congress.
As an alternative, Obama told his audience, his administration is focusing its enforcement on serious criminals and not college students.
“We are doing everything we can administratively, but the fact of the matter is these are laws on the books that I have to enforce,” Obama said. “What we can do is to prioritize enforcement, since there are limited enforcement resources, and say we’re not going to go chasing after this young man or anybody else who’s been acting responsibly and would otherwise qualify for legal status if the DREAM Act passed.”
“Wherever we can provide some administrative certainty,” he told Spanish-language news outlets in August, “the better off we’re going to be.”
The announcement of the immigration review during the dog-days of summer drew only modest attention in the English-language press, but it was huge news in the Spanish-speaking community.
“This came out with a big splash,” said Angela Kelley, an immigration policy expert at the liberal Center for American Progress. “If you watched Spanish-language press that day, the announcement wasn’t the first five or seven or nine minutes of [TV news], it was like the first 14 minutes.”
“All eyes are on this administration, especially in the Latino community,” Kelley added.
But she and other immigrant rights advocates noted that officials have yet to issue public guidelines for the review or explain how it will unfold.
“Agencies are rapidly deporting people, so it’s not something where you can kind of sit back and take your time,” she said. “Literally, people’s lives are at stake.”
She noted that Obama has deported 1 million people since he took office — more than President George W. Bush did in eight years.
“It’s as much to speed up the deportation of bad guys as it is to slow down the deportation of the best and brightest,” Kelley said. “There will always be people who point to a tragedy and want to play Monday morning quarterback and say, ‘If you hadn’t had that policy in place we would have known that jaywalker would become a murderer.’ It is kind of stretching.”
At the House hearing, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said Obama’s statements and the administration’s offer of work permits for those whose deportation is suspended amount to an invitation for illegal immigrants to enter or remain in the country.
“To say you can stay in the country and apply for work permits … actually goes around the will of the Congress,” McCaul said....
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