By: Richard J. Block
It is widely believed that President Obama is getting ready to announce, possibly later this week, a plan to overhaul U.S. immigration policy through executive action, including suspending deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants.
The President is expected to expand a policy of deferring action on deportation of illegal immigrants who came to the country as children, as well as for parents of U.S. citizens and permanent legal residents. That provision could let up to 5 million undocumented immigrants with U.S.-born children remain in the country.
The administration could also increase the number of technology (H-1B) visas available for skilled workers, which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and most U.S. businesses would welcome and may make tweaks to business visa programs to speed up the processing of employment-based green card cases.
Obama told congressional leaders he was committed to using executive powers to ease some restrictions on undocumented immigrants, since Congress, thus far, has been unable to agree on a comprehensive immigration reform bill.
It will be quite interesting to see how all this plays out in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for new developments.