President Obama’s executive actions on immigration shield more than 80 percent of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country from any danger of being deported, a top immigration think tank reported Thursday.
As part of his November amnesty Mr. Obama announced a program to proactively grant a temporary deportation amnesty to as many as 5 million illegal immigrants. But he also directed immigration agents not to bother deporting millions of others, even though they weren’t eligible for the official amnesty, which grants work permits and other benefits.
The directions to immigration agents were deemed enforcement “priorities,” and instructed agents not to bother arresting or deporting anyone who didn’t meet the top priority levels.
“Implementation of the new enforcement priorities is likely to affect about 9.6 million people,” MPI’s Marc Rosenblum, author of the new study, said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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