As illegal immigrants flood across the border, President Barack Obama is still reportedly planning to issue an executive action to give temporary amnesty and work permits this year to the parents of illegal immigrant children.
A “senior official familiar with the White House deliberations” told the Los Angeles Times that the “work is continuing” on a Deferred Action program for the parents of so-called DREAMers and other executive actions to ease deportations. The Times noted that the program “was tentatively slated to be announced this fall,” but the Obama administration may try to enact it after the midterm elections because two in three Americans, according to the most recent Gallup poll, disapprove of the way Obama is handling immigration right now.
In 2012, Obama, by executive fiat, enacted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that gave temporary amnesty and work permits for two years to illegal immigrant children who came to the country before they were 16, had been living in the United States since 2007, were not over 30 years of age, and met a variety of other requirements.
As Breitbart News has reported, “at least 560,000 people to date have been granted temporary amnesty under the DACA program,” and federal officials expect that number will increase as “applicants who were not eligible in 2012 because they were not 16 years of age” will be able to apply for DACA in September, when those who received temporary amnesty in 2012 can re-apply for another two years.
Amnesty advocates stormed Congress on Friday to demand Deferred Action for the parents and family members of illegal immigrant children, which Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) has also vehemently supported. Obama recently asked Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to delay its review of the nation’s immigration laws to give Congress time to pass comprehensive immigration legislation. But after House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) was ousted because of his support for amnesty legislation, momentum for such a bill has completely stalled in Congress. In recent weeks, Democrats have said Obama is not “bluffing” on executive actions and Obama; in his weekly address, he said he will “keep taking actions on my own” if Congress does not pass the bills he wants.
Two weeks ago, the Obama administration even honored ten activists and recipients of temporary amnesty at a “Champions of Change” White House ceremony. That prompted Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI), who is the Vice Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, to say the “tone-deaf” event is an example of the type of messaging that is “fueling the unprecedented surge of immigrant children being smuggled across our southern border” by “flaunting the success stories of ten immigrant children who entered the U.S. illegally.”
“How can we expect to dispel rumors throughout Central America that children who enter America illegally will be allowed to stay while simultaneously touting the success stories of a few illegal immigrant children granted de facto amnesty by the administration?” Miller said. “The sad truth is that most of the children being smuggled across the border today, in unprecedented numbers, will not have similar success stories.”
As Breitbart News has reported, there have been at least “52,000 unaccompanied illegal immigrant minors have crossed the border since October of last year and nearly 150,000 more may attempt to next year because they believe the Obama administration, which ignored the warning signs, will not deport them.”
The Obama administration in recent weeks has gone on a public relations campaign to tell parents in Central America to not send their children on the treacherous journey to America because they will get sent back home. But nearly all of the illegal immigrants – many of whom have been flagging down Border Patrol agents believing they will get “permisos” that will allow them to indefinitely remain in the United States – who are arriving made the journey from Central America with the belief that the Obama administration will not deport them and their families if they made it across the U.S.-Mexico border.