Moving to repair an immigration enforcement program that has drawn rising opposition from governors and police chiefs, senior immigration officials on Friday announced steps they said would focus the program more closely on deporting immigrants convicted of serious crimes.
In unveiling the changes, John Morton, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the deportation program would continue to expand as planned in order to be operating nationwide by 2013, despite criticism from many police chiefs and from the governors of Illinois, New York and Massachusetts.
But in making course corrections to the program, known as Secure Communities, Morton acknowledged the groundswell of local resistance, including opposition from Latino and immigrant groups, to an effort that is central to President Barack Obama's approach to controlling illegal immigration.
Critics said the program was casting too wide a net and had strayed from its goal of bolstering public safety by expelling illegal immigrants who committed the most dangerous crimes.
In a fix likely to have broad practical effect, Morton issued a memorandum that greatly expanded the factors immigration authorities can take into account in deciding to defer or cancel deportations. Agents are now formally urged to consider how long an illegal immigrant has been in the United States, or whether the immigrant was brought here illegally as a child and is studying in high school orcollege.
In practice, the memorandum gives immigration agents authority to postpone or cancel, on a case-by-case basis, deportations of illegal immigrant students who might have been eligible for legal status under a bill stalled in Congress that is known as the Dream Act.
The authorities are also instructed to give "particular care and consideration" to veterans and active-duty members of the military and to their close relatives
0 comments:
Post a Comment