Washington: US President Barack Obama has announced his intention to carry out a “lawful” executive action to fix the country’s “broken” immigration system, a measure that would offer, from early next year, three-year deferment of deportation proceedings and the right to work legally here, to nearly four million undocumented parents of US citizens, including many Indians, and legal permanent residents, and undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country before the age of 16.
Striking an emotional chord in his announcement of the action, Obama asked, “Are we a nation that tolerates the hypocrisy of a system where workers who pick our fruit and make our beds never have a chance to get right with the law? Are we a nation that accepts the cruelty of ripping children from their parents’ arms? Are we a nation that educates the world’s best and brightest in our universities, only to send them home to create businesses in countries that compete against us?”
While the President came in for the expected criticism from conservative quarters, particularly for what his detractors labelled as “amnesty” for undocumented workers, he sought to keep the lines of communications open with Republicans on Capitol Hill when he said, “I continue to believe that the best way to solve this problem is by working together to pass that kind of common sense law.”
However, he added, until that happened, he had the legal authority to take certain actions as President, “the same kinds of actions taken by Democratic and Republican presidents before me”, which would help to make the immigration system more fair and just.
Among the broad areas of policy change that the executive action would bring about are three main themes, namely more resources for policing the US borders to stem the flow of undocumented immigrants; the deferred deportation of certain immigrants; and a more streamlined process for high-skilled immigrants, graduates, and entrepreneurs to stay and contribute to the US economy.
The last of these is likely to have a significant impact on Indian graduates in the US, principally in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields, especially given that, according to a White House ‘fact sheet,’ the President’s action will strengthen and extend the use of the existing Optional Practical Training (OPT) programme for STEM graduates of US universities.
Further, the White House noted, the President’s action would provide portable work authorisation for high-skilled workers awaiting their permanent residence, or green cards, and their spouses.
At present, employees with approved green card applications often wait many years for their visa to become available, officials noted, and the Department of Homeland Security will make “regulatory changes to allow these workers to move or change jobs more easily [and finalise] new rules to give certain H-1B spouses employment authorisation as long as the H-1B spouse has an approved [green card] application.”
