22 Democratic senators ask Obama to help young immigrants stay in US:

International Breaking News:

The Canadian Press - ONLINE EDITION

By: The Associated Press

14/04/2011 6:10 PM

WASHINGTON - Twenty-two Senate Democrats are pressuring President Barack Obama to delay deportations of certain young immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

The senators ask in a letter for deferrals of any deportations of the young immigrants brought to the U.S. by parents who arrived or stayed illegally.

The senators also suggest smaller steps the president can take to help the young immigrants, such as making sure they know they can request deportation delays.

In the letter sent Wednesday, the senators acknowledge that Obama must enforce the law but say exercising prosecutorial discretion has a long history in the U.S. and is consistent with the rule of law.

Last year, the House passed the DREAM Act, which would have allowed the youths to stay in the U.S., but it failed in the Senate.

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Related news:

Senate Dems To Obama: Stop Deporting DREAM Act Students:

First Posted: 04/14/11 06:14 PM ET

Updated: 04/14/11 06:22 PM ET

WASHINGTON -- Leading Senate Democrats, including Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), called on the president on Wednesday to stop deporting undocumented young people who grew up in the United States.

A letter signed by 22 Senate Democrats asks President Barack Obama to use his executive authority to prevent deportation of young people who would have benefited from the DREAM Act, a bill that failed in the upper chamber last year. The legislation would have allowed undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. as children to stay, provided they kept a clean record and either enrolled in college or joined the military.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and her Democratic co-signers said in the letter that they will try to push to pass the DREAM Act through the Senate this session. But facing strong opposition from the Republican-led House, the senators argued the president should move in the meantime to help DREAM Act-eligible students and military service members.

"Current law unfairly punishes thousands of young people who grew up here and know only America as their home, holding them back from making a contribution to our country's military and economy," Gillibrand said in a statement within the message to Obama. "These young people deserve better."

Fellow New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the leading Democrat on immigration, sent a separate letter to the Obama administration on Thursday with a similar thrust.

The White House has pledged support for the bill. But the administration has been unreceptive to requests to block DREAM Act-eligible young people from deportation. Homeland Security Sec. Janet Napolitano said her agency would stay the course on immigration, even if it meant deporting students who would be protected under the legislation.

"I am not going to stand here and say that there are whole categories that we will, by executive fiat, exempt from the current immigration system -- as sympathetic as we feel towards them," she said at a recent appearance. Still, Napolitano added that cracking down on undocumented young people is "not the priority."

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