Today, President Obama signed an Executive Order which will stop deportation of illegal immigrants who entered the country as children. It’s not that easy though. The memo from Janet Napolitano (Sec. of Homeland Security) states that the following conditions should be met for the deportation to be stopped. The illegal immigrant should have:
- came to the United States under the age of sixteen;
- has continuously resided in the United States for a least five years preceding the date of this memorandum and is present in the United States on the date of this memorandum;
- is currently in school, has graduated from high school, has obtained a general education development certificate, or is an honorably discharged veteran of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces of the United States;
- has not been convicted of a felony offense, a significant misdemeanor offense, multiple misdemeanor offenses, or otherwise poses a threat to national security or public safety; and
- is not above the age of thirty.
All this sounds good. If the immigrant came into this country without the intention of breaking laws and they live their childhood without intention of breaking laws, it’s a good gesture by the Govt. which will benefit the immigrant rather than dumping immigrant onto foreign land (his/her native land) with no source of income. Keep in mind if the person has lived in US from toddler to adolescence, the country where he/she has roots is now alien land.
I applaud the President in taking this bold step. Even Republicans were leaning towards but now that a Democrat has taken this step, they are hell bent on opposing this. I wonder what will Sen. Marco Rubio say about this as his version of “Dream Act” had similar plans.
The only thing I do not like about this is that The President took this decision in election year and did not have the guts to take this decision before. To me, had it happened a year or two ago, I would have said the President wants to help these people. But now, I feel more like the President wants to score an election victory and so is trying to appeasing the Latino voters.
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