President Obama will announce his new 10 point immigration plan tomorrow night, according to the White House. He will address the nation on new commonsense steps he is taking to fix the broken immigration system, tomorrow at 8 p.m. ET.
Expansion of the deferred action program is one of the important points contained in his ten point plan. His plan would expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that he implemented in June 2012. A deportation reprieve under DACA was offered to the undocumented youth who got into the U.S. as children, by President Obama in 2012. Those who entered the country before June 2007 and were below age 31 when the program was implemented can apply for DACA.
Under President Obama’s new immigration plan, this program would be expanded and would include undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. before January 1, 2010. So more undocumented immigrants would become eligible for DACA. Approximately, 300,000 undocumented youth would be protected from deportation if this program is expanded.
Likewise, the new immigration plan would expand deferred action for the parents of U.S. citizens and green card holders who are living in the U.S. illegally. Undocumented adults whose children are green card holders or U.S. citizens, and who have lived in the U.S. for a five year period would be allowed to apply for deferred action. This would protect more than 4.5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Immigrant advocates say that deferred action is needed to help undocumented immigrants come out of the shadows and to prevent families from being separated. Earlier this week, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest stated that the President will act soon on immigration reform but did not provide information on his anticipated immigration plans. However, today the President has announced that he would announce his plans tomorrow night at 8 p.m. ET.
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