University of Kentucky cuts workforce, hikes tuition

University of Kentucky cuts workforce, hikes tuition

Illegal Alien Parents to Benefit from President's DREAM Act Decree

Lost in the media frenzy surrounding President Obama's decision to administratively implement the DREAM Act is the Administration's plans to also grant a reprieve to the illegal alien parents who brought them here in violation of U.S. immigration law. In doing so, the Administration is directly contradicting its own public relations campaign — and that of amnesty advocates nationwide — which has portrayed its new policy as a way to provide "a degree of relief" to "innocent young kids." (See White House transcript, June 15, 2012; to read more about the President's "deferred action" policy, see FAIR's Legislative Update, June 19, 2012)

The Administration's decision to not deport the illegal alien parents of so-called DREAMers was revealed by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano during a CNN interview. Here is the exchange between CNN Anchorman Wolf Blitzer and Secretary Napolitano:

BLITZER: What about the parents of these children? The children come forward now, they identify themselves. Should the parents be concerned that potentially they could be deported? They would now be identified as illegal immigrants.

NAPOLITANO: No. We are not going to do that. We have internally set it up so that the parents are not referred for immigration enforcement if the young person comes in for deferred action. However, the parents are not qualified for deferred action. This is for the young people who meet the criteria that we've set forth. (CNN transcript, June 15, 2012)

While Napolitano makes the distinction that the illegal alien parents will not qualify for "deferred action," the Administration's decision not to deport them essentially amounts to the same thing. The only major difference is that if the Department of Homeland Security simply administratively closes the parents' cases, it is uncertain whether it will grant the parents work authorization.

As if the President's new deferred action policy were not troubling enough itself, the decision not to deport the illegal alien parents of DREAMers could triple the number of illegal aliens who benefit from it. Excluding parents, the Pew Hispanic Center estimates that at least 1.4 million illegal aliens would qualify for deferred action under the President's new program. (See Pew Hispanic Center report, June 15, 2012) But with the Administration's acknowledgment that it will no longer deport the illegal alien parents of DREAMers, the size of the President's amnesty program could triple, or perhaps even quadruple, when fraudulent applications are taken into account.