Local advocates hail Obama's plan to grant work permits to young immigrants

By KEVIN O’HANLON / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Friday, June 15, 2012 2:15 pm | (84) Comments
 

Immigrant advocates hailed Friday’s announcement by the Obama administration that it will stop deporting younger illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children and grant them work permits if they have led law-abiding lives.

The policy change, announced Friday by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, will affect as many as 800,000 immigrants who have lived in fear of deportation.

It also bypasses Congress and partially achieves the goals of the so-called DREAM Act, a long-sought but never-enacted plan to establish a path toward citizenship for young people who came to the United States illegally but who have attended college or served in the military.

By some estimates, 30,000 illegal immigrants live in Nebraska. The number of those who might benefit from Friday’s announcement was not immediately available.

Lincoln City Councilwoman DiAnna Schimek, who as a state senator got a law passed to allow the children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state college tuition, said the move is overdue.

“There are so many young people in this country who, for all intents and purposes, are Americans,” she said. “And once they receive their education, whether it be high school, community college or college or if they served in the military, they still are not entitled to get a job or participate in our communities.”

Under the administration plan, illegal immigrants will be immune from deportation if they were brought to the United States before they turned 16 and are younger than 30, have been in the country for at least five continuous years, have no criminal history, graduated from a U.S. high school or earned a GED, or served in the military. They also can apply for work permits that will be good for two years with no limits on how many times they can be renewed.

The policy will not lead toward citizenship but will remove the threat of deportation and grant the ability to work legally, leaving eligible immigrants able to remain in the United States for extended periods. It tracks closely to a proposal offered by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida as an alternative to the DREAM Act.

John Wiegert, who helped lead the effort to pass a Fremont city ordinance that prohibited renting housing to illegal immigrants, decried the announcement, saying it will take away jobs from Americans.

“Look at our unemployment rate,” he said. “You hear on the news that college graduates are having a tough time finding jobs. Veterans are coming back from the war and having a tough time finding a job. You are going to add 800,000 to the workforce at a time when there are millions looking for a job?

“Why he’s favoring foreign workers over American workers — I can’t understand it.”

On the other hand, Darcy Tromanhauser, director of immigrant integration at the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest, agreed with Schimek.

“This is a really important step forward for immigrant youth who have grown up in the U.S. and are an enormous asset to America’s future,” she said.

Tromanhauser said, however, that the announcement “doesn’t … remove the urgent need for the DREAM Act.”

“(The) announcement is a temporary policy that still leaves real uncertainty and precariousness, which is no way for us to function as a society,” Tromanhauser said. “But this is a wise step in the direction of common sense, so that we’re not deporting good students who have already contributed in so many ways to their communities and who know only this country as home.”

The extraordinary step comes one week before President Barack Obama plans to address the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials’ annual conference in Orlando, Fla. Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney is set to speak to the group Thursday.

The election-year initiative addresses a top priority of an influential Latino electorate that has been vocal in its opposition to administration deportation policies.

And it comes at a time when the Hispanic vote could be critical in swing states, such as Colorado, Nevada and Florida. While Obama enjoys support from a majority of Hispanic voters, Latino enthusiasm for him has been tempered by the slow economic recovery, his inability to win congressional support for a broad overhaul of immigration laws and his administration’s aggressive deportation policy.

The change is likely to cause an outcry from congressional Republicans, who are sure to perceive Obama’s actions as an end run around them. Republicans already have complained that previous administration uses of prosecutorial discretion in deportations amount to back-door amnesty. Romney and many Republican lawmakers want tighter border security measures before considering changes in immigration law. Romney opposes offering legal status to illegal immigrants who attend college but has said he would do so for those who serve in the armed forces.

Schimek expressed little patience for those who would oppose helping illegal immigrants who came here as children.

“Get some compassion,” she said. “These young people did not come here of their own volition. They deserve a chance just like everyone else.”

State Sen. Charlie Janssen of Fremont, arguably the most zealous anti-illegal immigration lawmaker in the Legislature, said the announcement was “nothing more than election year pandering in an attempt to create more votes.”

“The fact that he had to do an end run around Congress to get it done makes it all the more unacceptable,” he said. “We have a floundering national economy with over 8 percent unemployment, so it’s unconscionable to think that the president wants to throw almost 1 million illegal immigrants into the job force. We have veterans returning from service overseas who could use those jobs. Thousands of high school and college students are having problems finding jobs as well. Along with his statement last week that the private sector is doing fine, this just shows how out of touch the president is with real working Americans.”

Lazaro Arturo Spindola, executive director of Nebraska’s Latino American Commission, said Obama’s plan is fair and directed toward law-abiding productive people.

“From the point of view of the American economy, business owners would not have to worry about unknowingly hiring an undocumented worker and face the consequences if caught. Farm owners can regain their laborers, and families will not have to be separated,” he said.

“These children and young adults whom the policy is targeting have been raised in the United States as any other U.S. citizen, and that is the only life they know. So far, these children have been caught between two worlds, the world where they grew up and are familiar with, and a strange world of uncertainty where they could get deported at any time. I think President’s Obama announcement is a positive step that lays the foundation for a solution to the current immigration debate.”

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll last month found Obama leading Romney among Hispanic voters 61 percent to 27 percent.

Read more: http://journalstar.com/news/national/local-advocates-hail-obama-s-plan-to-grant-work-permits/article_4293644d-ed4f-58a5-9262-e221ac683ff2.html#ixzz1y9TMMifV