Our pesky Congress has failed to pass the DREAM Act, a targeted amnesty for a subset of illegal immigrants, multiple times with different majorities. No matter. The Obama administration has granted a new round of deportation waivers to 800,000 illegal aliens, and the Department of Homeland Security has announced that DREAM is the effective policy of the federal government:
“Our nation’s immigration laws must be enforced in a firm and sensible manner,” said Secretary Napolitano. “But 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.”
Illegal immigrants who were brought to the country as young children who don’t pose a national security or public safety risk and meet other criteria will now be eligible for deferred action for up to two years, subject to renewal, and can get work permits. I have written about the Obama administration’s pattern of using prosecutorial discretion to achieve immigration policy results they can’t get through Congress before.
