By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
Thursday, August 15, 2013

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano had initially been reluctant to use unilateral powers to legalize young illegal immigrants, but on Thursday, the one-year anniversary of the program, she said more than 430,000 have been saved from deportation and said the policy sets the stage for a broader legalization.

Indeed, immigrant-rights groups are already demanding that President Obama do just that and use the same broad “prosecutorial discretion” powers he claimed for the young “Dreamers,” as they are known, and expand them to halt deportations for almost all of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.

“If the president granted me DACA then why can’t he do the same for the rest of my family? What makes us different?” said Brisa Cruz, in a statement released by the California Youth Immigrant Justice Alliance.

DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, as the program is official known in government-speak, began taking applications on Aug. 15, 2013.

Numbers released Thursday show that 430,236 people were granted exemptions from deportation as of July 31, while just 7,450 applicants had been denied — for an approval rate of 98.3 percent.

Overall, applications continue to drop, with fewer than 16,000 completed applications being submitted in July, or just 14 percent of the rate at the peak last October.

The administration still has a backlog of 62,777 applications awaiting a final decision, and another 52,455 that are in the pipeline awaiting criminal records checks.

“Prosecutorial discretion, which is used in so many other areas, is especially justified in DACA cases,” Ms. Napolitano wrote in a blog posting on the Homeland Security website. “And, by removing the threat of deportation for people brought to the country as children, we have been able to continue to focus our enforcement efforts on serious criminals, public safety threats, and those who pose a danger to national security.”

Still, the policy only grants illegal immigrants a stay of deportation.

Only Congress can confer full permanent legal status — something Ms. Napolitano said should happen.

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