Earlier Thursday evening, President Obama outlined the details of his exeutive action on the topic of immigration reform. In short, the order will protect some 5 million undocumented aliens from deportation and setup a work permit program. Full video of the President’s remarks are available here.
Report from The Hill:
President Obama will unveil a set of sweeping executive actions that will extend work permits and protection from deportation to roughly 5 million immigrants in a prime-time address Thursday night.
The president will also announce plans to shift enforcement efforts, ordering federal law enforcement officers to narrow their focus to those illegal immigrants with criminal records, gang affiliations or ties to terrorism.
And Obama will expand the total number of high-tech visas that are available, as well as loosen restrictions so that more would-be entrepreneurs can travel legally to the United States to launch companies.
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The biggest change to the immigration system will be a new program that allows the parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents to apply for work permits and deferred deportation.
An estimated 4 million parents will be eligible for the initiative. They are people who have been in the United States for at least five years and have no felony convictions but are currently in the country illegally.
The program is modeled on a similar initiative โ known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA โ that Obama launched in 2012 for immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children.
What will be the implications to these changes into the 2016 election?