Despite several Federal court defeats, President Obama’s executive dictates on amnesty have moved forward under the radar and lead to 80% of illegal aliens able to laugh at deportation threats and found apprehensions at a multi-decade low.
“There are 7 or 8 or 9 million people who are now safe under the current policy. That is a victory to celebrate while we wait for the Supreme Court,” said Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat who was among the chief cheerleaders pushing Mr. Obama to go around Congress and take unilateral steps last year.
The actions — often mislabeled by the press as executive orders — also included changes to the legal immigration system, such as making it easier for spouses of guest workers to also find jobs; allowing foreigners who study science and technology at U.S. universities to remain and work in the country longer; pushing legal immigrants to apply for citizenship; and waiving the penalty on illegal immigrant spouses or children of legal permanent residents so they no longer have to go to their home countries to await legal status.
On enforcement, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, called for a more coordinated approach to border security, and that paid off with a major drop in arrests of illegal immigrants in the Southwest. Apprehensions were at their lowest levels since the 1970s.
If not in law at least in practice, President Obama has unilaterally granted amnesty to millions of illegal alien lawbreakers.
The changes are already having a major effect. Deportations, which peaked at nearly 410,000 in fiscal year 2012, dropped to about 230,000 in fiscal year 2015, which ended Sept. 30. But Mr. Johnson said more of those being deported are the serious criminals and safety threats he wants his agents to worry about.
Indeed, if agents adhere strictly to his priorities, some 9.6 million of the estimated 11.5 million illegal immigrants in the country have no real danger of being deported, according to an estimate this year by the Migration Policy Institute.
The number could go even higher, depending on how agents follow some of Mr. Johnson’s other instructions. The secretary had said even some illegal immigrants with serious criminal offenses on their records should be allowed to stay if they had mitigating factors, such as deep family or community ties.
“It is tremendously harder now to deport even criminals, much less garden-variety illegal aliens. They have truly dismembered the immigration enforcement system, from the Border Patrol to the immigration courts,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for stricter immigration controls.
