immigration news

Immigration Sanity:
The White House has just taken a large step toward a more sensible and lawful policy on illegal immigration. The administration said that it would stop deporting illegal immigrants who pose no threat to public safety or national security so that it can focus on catching and expelling criminals who do. The new policy ratifies an approach set forth in a recent memo from the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, John Morton, on the agency’s use of “prosecutorial discretion.” The memo suggested that immigration enforcement officers and lawyers should move more aggressively against drug dealers, gang members, and other flagrant violators than against illegal immigrants who pose no danger. That would include people with clean records, those who came to the United States as children, the elderly, pregnant women, veterans, service members and those with serious illnesses or disabilities.The administration is not granting amnesty for any class of immigrants. It will review thousands of individual deportation cases, one by one, and suspend deportation proceedings in cases where a person is no threat.The new approach acknowledges that this country is squandering law-enforcement resources on deporting tens of thousands of people who work hard, pay taxes and build families. Misplaced enforcement efforts have also been directed at another vital resource — students who arrived in this country as children, graduated from high school, and want to serve in the military or go to college. (The new policy should protect many young people who would qualify for legal status under the long-stalled Dream Act.Critics of sensible immigration policy are accusing the administration of a “back-door amnesty.” But they are living in a fictional world, believing that all immigrants are dangerous criminals and that harsher laws and a border fence will make our immigration problems disappear. With this new policy, the administration is rejecting inflexible deportation policies that solve nothing.