President Obama’s Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced a DREAM Act-style “prosecutorial discretion” that would grant certain illegal immigrants official status in the United States.
The new policy offers illegal immigrants between the ages of 16 and 30 to who meet certain academic or military requirements to stay in the United States for two years, with work permits. “It is an exercise of discretion so that these young people are not in the removal system,” Napolitano told reporters during a conference call today.
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Senior administration officials said that the prosecutorial discretion would even benefit illegal immigrants who are already in court, in the process of removal or even having lost their case but have not yet been deported.
“The granting of deferred action under this new directive will not provide an individual with permanent lawful status and it will not provide a pathway to obtaining permanent awful status or citizenship,” Napolitano said. “This grant of deferred action is not immunity; it is not amnesty.”
DHS officials indicated that up to 800,000 people could receive deferred action, although such a grant would not be binding on Mitt Romney if he were to win the presidency this fall, they indicated.
