In light of our textbook's emphasis on citizenship, previous posts have dealt with deportation. ABC reports:
President Obama is relaxing rules for younger illegal immigrants who haven't broken the law since coming into the country as children, a move certain to rile Republicans.
The Homeland Security Department will no longer deport such immigrants, and work permits will be given to them, administration officials confirmed to ABC News.
The more lenient treatment is similar to the proposals in the DREAM Act, legislation supported by Obama but blocked in Congress. Obama is scheduled to speak about the change this afternoon, effectively bringing the issue of immigration back into the 2012 race today.
"Our nation's immigration laws must be enforced in a firm and sensible manner," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a statement. "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."Last August, Hans von Spakovsky took a different view of discretion:
When President Obama was inaugurated, he swore an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Article II, Section 3 directs the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Unfortunately, in what has become an all too common occurrence in this administration, Obama is once again bending that oath to the breaking point by specifically not taking care that immigration laws passed by Congress are faithfully executed.
The Department of Homeland Security announced on Thursday that it would halt all deportation proceedings against illegal immigrants who are attending school, have family in the military or are primarily responsible for other family members’ care, and allow them to apply for work permits. Apparently, the only illegal aliens that the Obama administration will detain and deport are those who have committed additional serious criminal offenses in the United States – the fact that they committed a crime under federal law by entering the United States illegally (8 U.S.C. § 1325) is apparently of no concern to this administration.
