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The details of President Barack Obama’s much-rumored, much-debated executive action on immigration are present, and the broad outline, according to Fox News and the New York Times, includes deportation relief for upwards of 5 million people. Here are three reported provisions that will have a dramatic impact on the lives of the United States’ 11 million undocumented immigrants:
1. Expansion of DACA, the program for DREAMers:
If you did not qualify for DACA in 2012, you may qualify under the Executive Plan. Back in 2012, a Department of Homeland Security directive known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) extended deportation relief to those young immigrants who came to the United States before their 16th birthday and went on to graduate from high school or serve in the US military. According to the Fox News report, Obama’s executive action has moved the cutoff arrival date from June 2007 to January 1, 2010, and remove the age limit (31 as of June ’12); a Migration Policy Institute (MPI) report from September detailed how changes to the initial plan could make hundreds of thousands of immigrants DACA-eligible: |

2. Relief for the undocumented parents of US citizen children:
A key part of the executive action “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,” a move that would legalize anywhere from 2.5-3.3 million people.
Obama will grant deportation reprieves to undocumented parents whose children are American citizens or legal permanent residents if they have lived in the country for five years and have not committed serious crimes, Obama said. Officials say the president can exercise prosecutorial discretion to avoid breaking up the families of children entitled to be in the country and to steer enforcement agents toward deporting criminals and foreigners who pose national security threats.
3. Elimination of mandatory fingerprinting program:
Under Secure Communities, or S-Comm, immigrants booked into local jails have their fingerprints run through a Homeland Security database to check their legal status. (If they’re unauthorized, they can be held by local authorities until the feds come pick them up.) The program, which began under President George W. Bush and was greatly expanded under Obama, has long come under fire for quickly pushing people toward detention and potential deportation, as well as for contributing to racial profiling and even the detention of thousands of US citizens. According to one 2013 report, S-Comm led to the deportation of more than 300,000 immigrants from fiscal years 2009 to 2013.
A key part of the executive action “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,” a move that would legalize anywhere from 2.5-3.3 million people.
Obama will grant deportation reprieves to undocumented parents whose children are American citizens or legal permanent residents if they have lived in the country for five years and have not committed serious crimes, Obama said. Officials say the president can exercise prosecutorial discretion to avoid breaking up the families of children entitled to be in the country and to steer enforcement agents toward deporting criminals and foreigners who pose national security threats.
3. Elimination of mandatory fingerprinting program:
Under Secure Communities, or S-Comm, immigrants booked into local jails have their fingerprints run through a Homeland Security database to check their legal status. (If they’re unauthorized, they can be held by local authorities until the feds come pick them up.) The program, which began under President George W. Bush and was greatly expanded under Obama, has long come under fire for quickly pushing people toward detention and potential deportation, as well as for contributing to racial profiling and even the detention of thousands of US citizens. According to one 2013 report, S-Comm led to the deportation of more than 300,000 immigrants from fiscal years 2009 to 2013.