New York Times
By Julian Aguilar
November 6, 2014
EL
PASO — With the midterm elections behind him, President Obama said he
was ready to take executive action to prevent many undocumented
immigrants from being deported, which analysts said
could benefit Texas’ agricultural, construction and service industries.
“For
the Texas economy, executive action could be a boon,” said Ali Noorani,
the executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a
Washington-based policy research group. “The agricultural
and construction industries disproportionately depend on undocumented
workers. And I think there are a lot of growers and builders out there
who would rest a lot easier if their work force was stable and legal.”
In
Texas, noncitizens make up about 35 percent of farmworkers, according
to a White House study on the effects of an immigration overhaul in
Texas.
Half
of the state’s construction workers were undocumented, according to a
2013 study by the Workers Defense Project and the University of Texas at
Austin. (The university is a corporate sponsor
of The Texas Tribune.) Many employees are classified as “independent
contract workers,” not as full time, allowing employers to avoid paying
taxes, workers’ compensation and overtime and to avoid checking a
worker’s immigration status.
The
president is expected to expand and modify his 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals initiative. That initiative provides certain younger
undocumented immigrants a two-year reprieve
from deportation proceedings and gives them renewable work permits.
Applicants must have been in the United States continuously since June
2007, must have arrived in the country before they were 16 and must have
been 30 or younger in June 2012.
Lorella
Praeli, a policy director for United We Dream, which advocates
immigration changes, said the president should remove the age limit and
expand relief to those who entered the country
after 2007. “We know that he’s got broad constitutional and legal
authority, and so we expect that his administration’s policy will
include millions of people,” Ms. Praeli said.
Through
June, more than 105,200 of the country’s 642,700 deferred action
applicants were from Texas, and 88,100 of those had been approved,
according to United States Citizenship and Immigration
Services, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security.
An
estimated 149,000 people in Texas are eligible but have not enrolled,
according to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research
group.
About
50,000 more undocumented immigrants across the country would be
eligible for deferred action if the arrival year was changed to 2009
from 2007, and another 180,000 if the relief were
extended to people who were in the country before turning 18.
President
Obama’s plan to act alone would bypass any partisan battles in
Congress, where Republicans will control both houses come January. Some
Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz of
Texas, have balked at sweeping immigration changes.
“Now is the time to stand up to the president and say, ‘No more amnesty,’ ” Mr. Cruz said in Austin.
Mr.
Noorani said more moderate Republicans might see tackling immigration
as a way to prove they can address pressing issues, which could help
them take back the White House in 2016.
“They
can either get credit for fixing the immigration system and actually
saying, ‘O.K., we’re going to make this permanent,’ or they can get
credit for trying to take the legalization of
families away,” he said.
Mr.
Obama, who delayed taking action on immigration until after the
elections, said Wednesday that he would act before January. “Before the
end of the year, we’re going to take whatever lawful
actions I can take that I believe will improve the functioning of our
immigration system,” he said. “What I am not going to do is just wait.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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