Obama halts some immigration cases
08/18/2011 5:00 PM
By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff
The Obama administration took one of its boldest steps yet toward addressing illegal immigration today by announcing it would halt potentially thousands of cases in federal immigration court if they do not involve criminals or people with flagrant immigration violations.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said today that the agency will launch a case-by-case review of 300,000 cases pending in immigration courts across the nation to focus on the federal government’s top priority, detaining and deporting criminals and serious violators of immigration law.
Immigrants classified as low-priority cases could receive a stay of deportation and the chance to apply for a work permit.
The move is likely to inflame political tensions nationwide as a campaign issue in 2012, and it has major implications in Massachusetts, which has the second-highest immigration court backlog in the United States. All manner of immigrants in the court pipeline could stand to benefit from the policy shift, from factory workers snatched in the 2007 New Bedford raid, to same-sex couples about to be separated, to youths facing deportation.
“The president has said on numerous occasions that it makes no sense to expend our enforcement resources on low-priority cases,â€
