President Obama is deeply committed to fixing our immigration laws and has been aggressively searching for partners in Congress who are willing to work with him to pass a new law. As he focuses on building a new 21st century immigration system that meets our nation’s economic and security needs, the President has a responsibility to enforce the existing laws in a smart and effective manner. This means making decisions that best focus the resources that Congress gives the Executive Branch to do this work. There are more than 10 million people who are in the U.S. illegally; it’s clear that we can’t deport such a large number. So the Administration has developed a strategy to make sure we use those resources in a way that puts public safety and national security first. If you were running a law enforcement agency anywhere in the world, you would target those who pose the greatest harm before those who do not. Our immigration enforcement work is focused the same way.  

Under the President’s direction, for the first time ever the Department of Homeland Security has prioritized the removal of people who have been convicted of crimes in the United States.  And they have succeeded; in 2010 DHS removed 79,000 more people who had been convicted of a crime compared to 2008.  Today, they announced that they are strengthening their ability to target criminals even further by making sure they are not focusing our resources on deporting people who are low priorities for deportation. This includes individuals such as young people who were brought to this country as small children, and who know no other home. It also includes individuals such as military veterans and the spouses of active-duty military personnel. It makes no sense to spend our enforcement resources on these low-priority cases when they could be used with more impact on others, including individuals who have been convicted of serious crimes.

So DHS, along with the Department of Justice, will be reviewing the current deportation caseload to clear out low-priority cases on a case-by-case basis and make more room to deport people who have been convicted of crimes or pose a security risk. And they will take steps to keep low-priority cases out of the deportation pipeline in the first place. They will be applying common sense guidelines to make these decisions, like a person’s ties and contributions to the community, their family relationships and military service record. In the end, this means more immigration enforcement pressure where it counts the most, and less where it doesn’t – that’s the smartest way to follow the law while we stay focused on working with the Congress to fix it.

• Came to the U.S. as children (15 or under)
• Are long-term U.S. residents (continuous physical presence for at least five years)
• Have good moral character
• Graduate from high school or obtain a GED
• Complete two years of college or military service in good standing

Smith: Administration Intent on Granting Backdoor Amnesty

Washington, D.C. – Today, the Department of Homeland Security announced the creation of a new working group that will begin a case-by-case review of illegal immigrants in removal proceedings and with a final order of removal to determine if those individuals should be removed to the agency’s discretion.  House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) released the statement below in response to the Administration’s announcement.

Chairman Smith:  “The Administration has again made clear its plan to grant backdoor amnesty to illegal immigrants.  They have created a working group that appears to have the specific purpose of overruling, on a ‘case-by-case’ basis, an immigration court’s final order of removal, or preventing that court from even issuing such an order.

“The Obama administration should enforce immigration laws, not look for ways to ignore them. The Obama administration should not pick and choose which laws to enforce. Administration officials should remember the oath of office they took to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the land.”

(Washington, DC - August 26, 2011) In response to sweeping changes in the enforcement of U.S. immigration policy announced August 18 by the White House and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is seeking detailed information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) about how the policy changes were formulated and how they will be executed.

On August 18, the Obama administration announced that it would no longer carry out enforcement in what it termed low-priority immigration cases. In a statement on the White House website and in a letter from DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to Democrat Senators, the Administration classified broad classes of immigration law violators as low-priority. The Secretary stated that some 300,000 pending deportation cases would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis with an eye toward dismissal of all that do not involve aliens who have been convicted of aggravated felonies, or pose other security dangers.

In a letter to Secretary Napolitano, Dan Stein, president of FAIR, sought clarification about how the Administration proceeded to make sweeping policy changes without congressional authorization; the cost in money and manpower to carry out the administrative changes; the impact of these changes on American workers, taxpayers and state and local governments; the role of non-governmental organizations in formulating the policy directives, and other issues.

“The announcements made last week by the White House and DHS amount to a radical change in our nation’s immigration policy,” state Stein. “These changes were made without approval by Congress – in fact, in direct contradiction to numerous laws enacted by Congress. The American people have a right to know on what legal basis the Administration is asserting such broad discretionary power.

“The immigration laws that the Administration has declared it will no longer enforce were designed to protect the jobs and tax dollars of Americans. As such, the American public has a compelling interest in knowing the likely consequences of the Administration’s decision to abandon enforcement of those laws,” continued Stein.

The policy changes appear to have been the direct consequence of White House and DHS meetings with outside groups identified as “stakeholders” in U.S. immigration policy. Without exception, every one of these “stakeholders” is on record in support of amnesty for illegal aliens. “The American people have a right to know who is making their immigration policies. Clearly it is not Congress, which is vested with the exclusive constitutional authority to legislate immigration policy. Drastic changes have been made to U.S. immigration policy. It is critical to our democratic process for Americans to know exactly how those changes were influenced by groups representing illegal aliens and cheap labor businesses.”