In a
bold and unexpected move the Obama administration announced that it will no
longer deport undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as
children and have not broken the law.
Much like the long-lost DREAM Act, which would have allowed young people
who came to the states illegally but attended college or served in the
military, illegal immigrants who are under 30 may fall under the plan.
There
are quite a number of requirements, however.
Not only must they be under 30, but they must have come to the US before
they turned 16, have been in the country for at least five continuous years,
have no criminal history, graduated from a U.S. high school, earned a GED or
served in the military.
Those
immigrants who meet those requirements will be immune from deportation and will
be eligible to apply for a standard work permit that will be good for two years
with no limits on how many times it can be renewed. They will not necessarily be granted
citizenship, but they will no longer have to hide in fear of deportation.
Janet
Napolitano, former governor of Arizona and current head of Homeland Security
explained that while immigration laws must be enforced in a firm and sensible
manner, " they are not designed to be blindly enforced without
consideration given to the individual circumstances of each case. Nor are they
designed to remove productive young people to countries where they may not have
lived or even speak the language. Discretion, which is used in so many other
areas, is especially justified here.”
“Many
of these young people have already contributed to our country in significant
ways.”
Not
everyone sees this new policy as a great idea.
Several prominent figures on the
right-wing are declaring that this is practically amnesty, and that with so
many Americans already unemployed it doesn’t make any sense grant illegal
immigrants work visas.
What
they don’t seem to take into account is that these young people are already
working. They may be working illegally,
or under the table, but if they are here and alive they have to support
themselves somehow, especially when the traditional societal safety net isn’t
available to them. The law isn’t adding
new people to the labor pool, it is simply giving those who are already working
legitimacy and taking away the huge incentive of employers to abuse these individuals.
It
also might be the first step in ensuring that more immigrants come here
legally, rather than in the terrifying and horribly dangerous way they do
now.
"It
also sets the ball in motion to break the gridlock and fix our laws so that
people who live here can do so legally and on the books, and people can come
with visas instead of smugglers in the first place,” says Rep. Luis Gutierrez,
D-Ill. “Today, the students are being
protected, but we have to fix the system for their families and for the country
once and for all."
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