Down Payment on a Dream

NEW YORK TIMES (Editorial)

By August 10, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/opinion/down-payment-on-a-dream.html

The most promising effort in years to restore fairness and hope to the immigration system begins Wednesday, when the Obama administration will start accepting applications from young, undocumented immigrants who want to be shielded from deportation so they can be free to work and go to school.

The program to halt deportations is limited, hedged by detailed rules and not to be confused with broad immigration reform, which is out of reach at a time when antipathy to the undocumented runs high in Washington and in the states.

But any progress away from indiscriminate immigration enforcement, and toward opening pathways to a fuller involvement in society, is worth noting and celebrating.

Under the program, applicants must have been brought to the United States before turning 16, be under 31, have clean records and have lived here for at least the last five years. Those who are accepted will not be legalized, even if they are given permission to work. They will instead be granted two-year deferrals of deportation, which are renewable.

By one estimate, 1.7 million of the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants may qualify.

Announced by President Obama in June, the program is not the legalization or path to citizenship that millions are longing for and deserve. It’s simply a decision by the Department of Homeland Security, at President Obama’s instruction, to get its enforcement priorities right — focusing on removing criminals and others who threaten community safety, not the law-abiding, hard-working young people who pose no threat and cannot be blamed for their unauthorized status.

There are two major worries as the program unfolds. One is whether Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that will run the program, can handle the administrative load. Alejandro Mayorkas, the director, says his agency is investing in staffing and training, helped along by the $465 fee charged to each applicant. The agency depends entirely on fees.

The other fear is that applicants will fall prey to fraud. Immigration law is fiendishly complicated, which unscrupulous consultants, known as “notarios,” take full advantage of. Applicants who are rejected have no right to appeal and will still risk deportation, especially those whose paperwork was falsified. The citizenship agency needs to do all it can to educate applicants and deter scams.

Then there will be the attacks from those who cannot stomach anything less than the ejection of every last immigrant who lacks legal status. This harshness is exemplified by Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, who denounced the program on Wednesday.

“I cannot overstate the tragedy of this,” he said, doing just that. His inability to distinguish “criminal aliens” from the young strivers the United States needs is the reason the country has been forced into administrative half-measures, rather than real legislative reform.