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While campaigning for his first term in 2008, President Barack Obama won over Democratic Hispanic voters by promising comprehensive immigration reform in his first year as president—reform that would allow millions of illegal immigrants a path to U.S. citizenship. He failed to fulfill that promise in his first term, focusing instead on health care. Now, his current immigration reform bill is stuck in limbo because House Republicans do not want to pass it without concessions. Despite his inability to pass the bill without the support of Congress, President Obama has affected immigration policy by working around the existing laws and using his executive powers. Here are 10 things that you need to know about how Obama has changed immigration policy since taking office.
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The focus is on deporting criminals.
In 2011, then-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton issued a series of directives that became known as “the Morton Memos.” The memos effectively divided undocumented immigrants into two categories. Foreigners who committed crimes or posed a threat to national security were in one category—for expedited deportation. Young students, military service members, the elderly, and family of U.S. citizens were deemed low-priority, and immigration agency lawyers were encouraged to close their cases.
A large number of minor criminals are still being deported.
Since Obama took office, two-thirds of the nearly two million deportation cases involved people who had committed minor infractions (such as speeding), or had no criminal record at all, according to a New York Times analysis of government records. Only twenty percent of deportation cases involved serious crimes.
Obama expanded a program that checks the fingerprints of suspected criminals.
Secure Communities was a program piloted by George W. Bush’s administration in 2008, which only applied to some jurisdictions—until it was expanded under the Obama administration and made mandatory in all states by 2013. It requires local and state police to send the fingerprints of anyone they arrest to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS officials can then check those prints for a match and, if the person arrested is undocumented, decide whether or not to initiate deportation proceedings.
Young people who were brought into the country as children will no longer be deported.
When President Obama could not get the DREAM Act to pass Congress, he took matters into his own hands.The law would have given legal status to undocumented immigrants under the age of 30 who were brought to the U.S. before they turned 16 years old. (In order to qualify, they would have needed to prove residency in the U.S. for at least five years, and have either a high-school diploma, GED, or a record of military service.) Since it did not pass in Congress, the Obama administration instead issued a directive in June 2012, halting the deportation of the people who would have been eligible for the DREAM Act. The policy, while not granting any permanent legal status, allows young undocumented immigrants to work legally and obtain driver’s licenses. The executive order excludes convicted criminals, who will be deported regardless of age.
The immediate relatives of American citizens can apply for a visa.
Under an Obama administration rule created last year, undocumented immigrants who demonstrate that time apart from an American spouse, child or parent would create "extreme hardship" can apply for a visa without leaving the states. The policy is aimed at reducing the amount of time immigrants are separated from their family while seeking legal status.
A memo instructed ICE agents to avoid deporting the undocumented parents of minor children.
The Obama administration issued a nine-page memo in August 2013 instructing immigration agents to resist arresting and deporting the undocumented parents of minor children. If parents are detained, the memo advises that agents ensure they have the ability to visit with their children or participate in family court proceedings.
The largest increase in deportations involved undocumented immigrants who violated traffic laws.
A New York Times investigation revealed that the largest increases in deportations since Obama took office involved illegal immigrants whose most serious offense was a traffic violation. This means that more immigrants were deported for speeding or driving without a license than for more serious crimes. Deportation of traffic violators quadrupled in the first five years that Obama was in office.
Deportations of people who enter or re-enter the country illegally have tripled under Obama.
The Times also reported an increase in deportations related to illegally entering or re-entering the country, which tripled when compared to the last five years of George W. Bush’s administration.
Immigration officials set a quota to amp up deportations.
Republicans have made it clear that they will not support the President’s immigration reforms until border security is increased. President Obama and his former Department of Homeland Security secretary, the then-Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, decided that they needed to keep the number of deportations high to convince Republicans that the borders were secure, and thus get their bill passed. Immigration officials set a goal of 400,000 deportations a year, according to The Times, and sent more agents to the border.
Facing protests, Obama promised to make his deportation programs “more humane.”
While Republicans say the President is too soft on illegal immigration, the opposite is (unsurprisingly) said by immigration activists, who call him the “deporter-in-chief.” In March, after meeting with Hispanic activists, President Obama promised that Jeh C. Johnson, the secretary of Homeland Security, would review his department’s actions to address what he called a moral crisis among immigrants. He announced that there would be a review of his administration’s deportation programs in an effort to make them “more humane.”