Dream Act students won't be deportation targets, officials say

August 18, 2011 | 12:57pm

The Obama administration announced Thursday that undocumented students and other low-priority immigration offenders will not be targeted for deportation under enforcement programs.

The announcement marks further steps to stop the deportation of people it considers "low-priority" immigrants like so-called Dream Act eligible students and those with long-standing family ties in the country. These eligible students are those who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children by their parents.

The move means that those who are in deportation proceedings will have their cases reviewed and, if they are set aside as low-priority, could possibly be given work permits. Low-priority individuals will also be less likely to end up in deportation proceedings in the first place, officials said.

"There are 300,000 in the case load who will be looked at one at a time," said a senior administration official.

The announcement comes at the same time that hundreds of documents were released that a federal judge says show immigration officials misled states and local governments on how the so-called Secure Communities enforcement program would work.

“There is ample evidence that ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and DHS [Department of Homeland Security] have gone out of their way to mislead the public about Secure Communities,â€