Obama Ends Some Deportations

The Obama administration ends deportation of young, clean-record illegal immigrants. We’ll look at the policy and the politics.

Barack Obama has been downright harsh on illegal immigration.  In three years, he’s deported more illegal immigrants than any president in half a century.  But not last week.

In a dramatic move on Friday, the president announced that he would, by executive order, stop deportation of young, clean-record illegal immigrants.  Give them work permits and a legal path to life in the United States, where they grew up.  It’s a short-term patch, but with big humanitarian and political implications for a president running hard for re-election.

This hour, On Point:  the president’s big young migrant move.
-Tom Ashbrook

Jake Tapper, senior White House correspondent for ABC News.

Joe Dana, a reporter and anchor at KPNX Channel 12, the NBC affiliate in Phoenix.

Victoria DeFranco Soto, a fellow at the Center for Politics and Governance at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

ABC News "President Obama is relaxing rules for younger illegal immigrants who haven't broken the law since coming into the country as children, a move certain to rile Republicans."

Time "In a dramatic shift in policy — and a day after TIME's cover story — the U.S. government said Friday it will give eligible young undocumented residents work permits and not subject them to deportation."

Los Angeles Times "It was early Friday morning, and UCLA graduate Maria Gomez had only heard some of the news — something about President Obama granting immunity to young illegal immigrants like herself — when the congratulatory text messages began flying in."