In Deportation Policy Test, 1 in 6 Offered Reprieve
Prosecutors have completed a lightning review ordered by the Obama administration of virtually all 7,900 deportation cases before the immigration court here, identifying more than 1,000 foreigners who pose no security risk and allowing them to remain in the United States.
In a test run of the first comprehensive docket review ever undertaken in the nation’s immigration courts, 16 prosecutors, laboring long days and weekends since Dec. 5, read through looming stacks of paper files to meet a mid-January deadline laid down by Washington.
According to official results obtained by The New York Times, 16 percent of all those facing deportation in Denver — 1,301 immigrants — will receive offers from prosecutors to close their cases after they pass criminal background checks. Department of Homeland Security officials plan to extend the review in coming months to all of about 300,000 cases before the country’s immigration courts.
The administration’s effort to apply prosecutorial discretion to halt tens of thousands of deportations is a major departure for prosecutors and enforcement agents, and was generally welcomed by immigrant organizations. But the administration is not offering any positive legal status to illegal immigrants permitted to stay. Many will be left in an indefinite limbo where they cannot work or obtain driver’s licenses and may struggle to subsist, lawyers said.
full: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/us/in-test-of-deportation-policy-1-in-6-offered-reprieve.html?pagewanted=all