White House Announces Coming Executive Order On Immigration Reforms

According to the New York Times, President Obama is preparing to issue executive orders concerning immigration which could affect up to 5 million people currently living in the United States.

One key piece of the order, officials said, will allow many parents of children who are American citizens or legal residents to obtain legal work documents and no longer worry about being discovered, separated from their families and sent away.

That part of Mr. Obama’s plan alone could affect as many as 3.3 million people who have been living in the United States illegally for at least five years, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration research organization in Washington.

But the White House is also considering a stricter policy that would limit the benefits to people who have lived in the country for at least 10 years, or about 2.5 million people.

The executive order by Obama would apparently take into account immigrants with strong family ties and no criminal background, placing those folks on the low end of the priority scale.

Two items of note here:

• Any executive order issued by Obama could be reversed with the stroke of a pen by a new president in 2017.

• The US Senate passed a comprehensive, bipartisan immigration reform bill last year, but the GOP led House has refused to bring the legislation to a vote.

White House officials say lawyers had been working for months to ensure any action by the president would be “legally unassailable.”

President Obama has publicly stated that he will reverse his executive orders should Congress pass meaningful immigration reform legislation.