Facing an election-year backlash from Hispanic voters, President Obama put on hold the deportation of up to 300,000 illegal immigrants who have been rounded up by local police and turned over to the federal government under a program Obama instituted. Obama called for individual reviews of 300,000 deportation cases and ordered that any cases involving children or immigrants who had not committed violent crimes — the original target of his immigration enforcement program — be suspended.
The administration’s announcement follows increasing criticism from the Hispanic community of the president’s aggressive deportation policies, which led to the removal of nearly 1 million immigrants over the last two years. No other president has overseen that many deportations.
