Report: Obama administration policy shift could ‘substantially transform’ immigration system, lower deportations

From The Washington Post:

The Obama administration’s profound shift in its enforcement of immigration laws could “substantially transform” the nation’s immigration dragnet, reducing deportations and protecting nearly 90 percent of the illegal migrants already here, a new report says.

As The Washington Post reported this month, the Department of Homeland Security has taken steps to ensure that the majority of the United States’ 11.3 million undocumented immigrants can stay in this country. The changes are designed to hasten the integration of long-term illegal immigrants into society rather than targeting them for deportation.

With little fanfare, DHS has since January been training thousands of immigration agents nationwide to change their everyday enforcement of immigration laws. The new policies direct agents to focus on three priority groups of illegal migrants — convicted criminals, terrorism threats or those who recently crossed the border — and leave virtually everybody else alone.

The policy changes are separate from the court fight over President Obama’s highly publicized executive action on immigration. That battle centers on the constitutionality of a program that would officially shield as many as 5 million eligible illegal immigrants from deportation, mainly parents of children who are U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. A federal judge put the program, known by the acronym DAPA, on hold in February after 26 states sued.

Although the new measures DHS is taking do not grant illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, advocates for immigrants say their lives could be changed in numerous ways, including making them less fearful of driving so they don’t get stopped by police.