It does not grant citizenship, or the right to stay here permanently, or offer the same benefits that citizen receive – only Congress can do that. All we’re saying is we’re not going to deport you. President Obama, Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on Immigration, 11/20/14.
Fact Check: President Obama made this statement in reference to his most recent unilateral edict on immigration, one offering proclamation of legal status and work permits to as many as five million illegal aliens. In 2012 he decreed the same terms to illegal aliens in the Dream Act category. Since then more than 600,000 have had their applications approved.
By allowing illegal aliens to work in this country, in defiance to federal law, he is indeed giving them an important benefit properly belonging to citizens—at a time when many citizens are unemployed. Thanks to Obama, they will face job competition from illegal aliens who won’t have to worry about deportation.
Obama uses, or more accurately abuses, the legal principle of “prosecutorial discretion” to justify his actions. It holds that law enforcement agencies can set priorities for enforcement, such as focusing more on major criminals, rather than minor ones. But he goes far beyond this principle, by putting a whole class of offenders off limits to prosecution rather than simply focusing on them less. This amounts to changing a law, and to use Obama’s words “only Congress can do that.” Obama also is changing the law when he allows this protected class of violators to break the existing law against employment of illegal aliens. Once again, “only Congress can do that.”
Obama claims that the beneficiaries of his edicts are not being granted permanent status. That is technically true, but practically false. Under the guidelines of his edicts, they will have two-year authorizations for employment. But they can apply to renew the authorizations when they lapse, and keep on renewing them. They also will receive Social Security cards, which suggests a permanent status. The clear strategy is to make their presence a fait accompli so that it will be politically difficult, if not impossible, for any future administration to scrap the edicts and send them hope.
Contrary to Obama’s statement that they will not get citizenship, it appears that his administration is angling to do exactly that, at least for many of them. Under a provision in immigration law called “advance parole,” foreigners legally applying to become permanent residents can leave the U.S. and return legally if their need to travel is a legitimate emergency, or if their presence after return is deemed to be in the public interest.
This is a provision meant for foreigners who have abided by our immigration laws, not for illegal aliens. Nevertheless, the Obama administration has allowed thousands of illegal aliens given legal status under his first edict (the Dreamers) to receive official permanent status under advance parole. Specifically, out of 6,400 who applied for advance parole, 4,566 received it. Now as official permanent residents, all of the latter can eventually apply to become citizens.
How long will it be before a lot more of the “temporary” beneficiaries of the 2012 edict calculate that they too can gain advance parole if they can concoct some “emergency” reason for going home and coming back. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) wrote a protest letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson charging that “Your Department’s recent changes [with respect to advance parole] seem to be a sneaky attempt to place potentially hundreds of thousands of unlawful immigrants on a path to citizenship.” Undoubtedly, the administration will offer the same opportunity to illegal aliens covered under the most recent edict.
Purely and simply, the words and promises of Obama cannot be trusted. He and his administration have one overriding objective, as Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has thoroughly documented, and that is to sabotage immigration law enforcement with a reign of lawlessness.