On Spanish-language television on Tuesday, Obama rejected the idea that he could expand Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) - his August 2012 executive order which made as many as 1.9 million young undocumented immigrants eligible for work authorization and a deferral of deportation procedures - to adult immigrants without legal status, too. Such an expansion, Obama told Telemundo, is "not an option", adding, "If we start to expand that, then essentially I would be ignoring the law in a way that would be very difficult to defend legally."
The news will likely disappoint immigrant advocates, who with few signs that the Republican majority in the House of Representatives intends to consider comprehensive legislation on immigration, have been redirecting some of their pressure toward President Barack Obama in the hopes that he could act unilaterally on the issue. His deportation policies, which see an average of over 1,000 immigrants deported per day, have drawn ire from advocates for what they see as their lack of discernment between criminals and noncriminals. In 2012, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removed 409,849 people, many of them using Secure Communities, a 2008 program which requires local law enforcement officials to run the fingerprints of arrestees through a federal immigration database in order to determine their criminal history and legal status.
The agency says it has prioritized the removal of "criminal aliens, those who pose a threat to public safety, repeat immigration violators" and "the most dangerous and violent offenders". It says that in fiscal year 2012, 55 percent, or 225,390 of those removed, were convicted criminals. But indications are that the wide nets it casts sweep up plenty of people who have been responsible for no crimes or minor offenses, like traffic violations. In the previous year, for example, 26 percent of those deported had immigration violations and no criminal convictions. In counties where local law enforcement expends the most energy in enforcing immigration law, the percentage could be much higher: in 2010, 54 percent of those flagged by Secure Communities in the Maricopa County, Arizona jurisdiction of Sheriff Joe Arpaio had no record at all.
Immigrant advocates denounce the president's record on deportations. In 2012, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), one of the most outspoken voices on the issue among Democratic lawmakers, said that year's 409,849 deportations were "nothing to be proud of" and estimated that about 90,000 people who were "assets to American communities and have committed no crimes" are deported yearly. As the end of the year approaches - and with it, the likelihood that immigration reform will be put on the backburner until 2015, since mid-term elections in 2014 are expected to make action on such a sensitive issue unlikely - activists are preparing a massive rally and concert on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. from Oct. 5-8 in hopes that they can force House Republicans to consider the Senate's comprehensive bill.
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