Immigration Reform News 2014: President Obama's 10-Point Executive Action Plan Leaked
President Obama's 10-point executive action plan for overhauling the immigration system in the U.S. was obtained exclusively by Fox News. The plan would suspend deportations for millions of immigrants, allow parents of children born in the U.S. to stay in the country and boost border control.
The plan was contained in a draft proposal from a U.S. government agency, according to Fox.
The Obama Administration had already called on the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice to make recommendations for his immigration reform plan and BuzzFeed reported those were being drafted.
A senior administration official, however, told The Huffington Post that the president had yet to decide on immigration action, and had not yet received recommendations from the Department of Homeland Security.
The plan, according to Fox News, calls for expanding deferred action for undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children -- but also for the parents of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. The latter could allow upwards of 4.5 million undocumented immigrant adults with U.S.-born children to stay, according to estimates, and possibly receive work authorization, Social Security numbers and government-issued IDs.
Another item would expand Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program known as DACA, to include any who entered the country before they were 16, offering amnesty to another 300,000 immigrants.
Another proposal would give a pay raise to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
The plan also proposes abandoning the Secure Communities program that led to the deportation of immigrants with criminal records and start a new program.
Another item would offer an estimated 500,000 immigrants a path to citizenship who took tech jobs though a State Department immigrant visa program. This would include their spouses, as well.
President Obama has promised to take executive action on immigration reform, postponing doing so twice. He said he would make an announcement by the end of the year.
"What we can't do is just keep on waiting," he said. "There's a cost for waiting."