The White House’s election-year announcement Friday that certain illegal immigrants may be spared from deportation and given the right to work in the United States spurred strong reactions in Georgia, a state embroiled in a federal court battle over its push for stringent enforcement of immigration laws.
Under the Obama administration’s policy, special consideration will be given to illegal immigrants who came to the United States under age 16; are now younger than 31; are in school, have graduated from high school or are honorably discharged U.S. military veterans; and have not been convicted of a felony. They could also get work permits.
Critics in Georgia accused the Obama administration of ignoring the nation’s immigration laws and pandering to Hispanics for votes in the coming presidential election. They point to a 2010 Pew Hispanic Center estimate showing Georgia is home to the seventh-largest number of illegal immigrants among the states at 425,000.
Proponents called the new policy humane, saying it makes sense to give special consideration to those illegal immigrants who meet the guidelines set in the policy.
Others were skeptical, saying the government said similar things last year but has closed only a small percentage of the nation’s more than 300,000 deportation cases through “prosecutorial discretion.”
The White House’s announcement comes just days before the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of Arizona’s groundbreaking illegal immigration law. Expected by the end of this month, that ruling could affect whether a controversial part of a similar law in Georgia may be enforced. That law -- which would authorize police to investigate the immigration status of certain suspects -- is now tied up in a federal appeals court in Atlanta amid a legal challenge brought by civil and immigrant rights groups.
The announcement also comes just a week before President Barack Obama is expected to address Hispanics at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials' annual conference in Florida. Obama has criticized states’ efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, saying it is a mistake for them to adopt their own immigration enforcement statutes.
Obama's Republican challenger, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, is scheduled to address the conference a day before the president. In the past, he has taken a harder line on illegal immigration and has said he opposes the federal government’s efforts to block Arizona’s law. Friday in Milford, N.H., he said illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children are "an important matter to be considered," but he added that Obama's decision will make it harder to find a long-term solution.
Obama discussed his administration's new approach at a Rose Garden event Friday.
“Now, let's be clear -- this is not amnesty, this is not immunity,” Obama said. “This is not a path to citizenship. It's not a permanent fix. This is a temporary stopgap measure that lets us focus our resources wisely while giving a degree of relief and hope to talented, driven, patriotic young people.”
Up to 1.4 million people who are in the country illegally could benefit from the White House policy, according to an estimate the Pew Hispanic Center released Friday.
John Litland, who supports Georgia’s illegal immigration law, called Friday’s announcement “treason.” The Marietta businessman also bemoaned how the White House is proposing to permit some illegal immigrants to work in the United States amid high unemployment here.
“I am just livid,” said Litland, a member of the Dustin Inman Society, which advocates enforcement of U.S. immigration and employment laws. “It is treason. The president of the United States swears an oath to enforce the laws of this country and he has not even done that.”
Pedro “Peter” Morales -- who was illegally brought to the U.S. by his parents when he was 7 -- is hoping the Obama administration’s announcement will help him get a work permit. He wants to get a job, move out of his parents’ home in Dalton, save for college and open his own automotive repair business.
Morales, now 20, was almost deported last year. His deportation case is among more than 4,300 the government has closed since last year as part of its effort to shrink a massive backlog in the nation's immigration courts and shift more focus toward higher priority cases. But Morales still does not have legal status in the U.S. And the government hasn’t permitted him to work legally here. He said Friday that he was planning to contact his lawyer about applying for work authorization.
“That is great because if I actually get that, it would make my life a whole lot easier, not just for me but for a lot of people -- and my parents,” he said.
Joseph Rosen, a local immigration attorney who teaches immigration law at Atlanta's John Marshall Law School, said he was looking into how the new policy could benefit some of his clients. He said the government’s new approach will save children’s lives.
“You are taking kids, for example, that were brought to the United States at age 2 and are facing deportation to brutal, violence-prone areas of Mexico and other parts of the world,” he said, “and you are going to allow them to stay in the United States and not have their lives be put in jeopardy.”
Others were skeptical about Friday’s announcement, citing how the Obama administration said similar things last year but has closed only a small percentage of deportation cases such as Morales’ since then. Activists in Georgia said they wanted the White House to issue an executive order that would specifically stop the deportations of Dream Act-eligible youths. The Dream Act -- which failed in Congress in 2010 -- would give illegal immigrants a path to legal status if they came here as children, graduated from high school and attended college or served in the military.
“We are not very optimistic about what is going on. It is very shady,” said Dulce Guerrero, 19, a Cobb County high school graduate who was illegally brought to the United States from Mexico when she was an infant. “And we are not endorsing it just yet.”
A spokeswoman for Gov. Nathan Deal, who signed Georgia’s illegal immigration statute into law last year, referred questions to the state’s congressional delegation. Several Georgia congressmen characterized Obama’s move as an unconstitutional power grab.
“With today’s decree, President Obama demonstrates the same contempt for America’s laws that those who enter illegally do,” U.S. Rep. Rob Woodall, R-Lawrenceville, said in a prepared statement. “He is undermining the balance of power laid out by the U.S. Constitution, going far beyond his power within the executive branch and advancing his election-year politics at the expense of the American economy and the American people’s trust.”
Staff writer Daniel Malloy and The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Change in immigration policy
The Obama administration announced Friday that special consideration will now be given to some illegal immigrants that would spare them from deportation and give them the right to work legally in the U.S.
The qualifications:
- They must have come to the U.S. when they were under the age of 16.
- They must be younger than 31 years old.
- They are in school, have graduated from high school or possess an honorable discharge from the U.S. military.
- They have not been convicted of a felony.
What the candidates say:
During a Rose Garden event Friday, President Barack Obama characterized the change in policy as a "temporary stopgap measure" that is not amnesty or immunity and allows the country to focus its resources "while giving a degree of relief and hope to talented, driven, patriotic young people."
While campaigning Friday in Milford, N.H., Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said the problem of immigrants brought to the country illegally as children is "an important matter to be considered," but he added that it makes it more difficult to reach a long-term solution.
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