Posted on July 23, 2015

Report: 87 Percent of Illegal Immigrants to Remain in U.S.

Caroline May, Breitbart, July 23, 2015

An estimated 87 percent of illegal immigrants in the United States will not face a threat of deportation from the U.S. and have “a degree of protection” due to President Obama’s executive actions on immigration enforcement, the Migration Policy Institute concludes in a new report.

The MPI report, issued Thursday, highlights the impact of the new policy guidance on immigration enforcement on the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.–namely the Obama administration’s move to replace the Secure Communities program with the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP).

“MPI estimates that about 13 percent of unauthorized immigrants in the United States would be considered enforcement priorities under these policies, compared to 27 percent under the 2010-11 enforcement guidelines,” the report reads. “The net effect of this new guidance will likely be a reduction in deportations from within the interior of the United States as DHS detention and deportation resources are increasingly allocated to more explicitly defined priorities.”

MPI further estimates that the priority shift will reduce interior deportations from the U.S. by 25,000 annually.

It speculates that there are 1.4 million illegal immigrants with criminal convictions that would make them priorities for enforcement–lower than the 3 million MPI estimated under the 2010-201 guidelines.

“While much of the attention to the president’s executive action announcement has focused on the deferred action programs, which MPI has estimated could grant relief from deportation to as many as 5.2 million unauthorized immigrants, implementation of the new enforcement priorities is likely to affect about 9.6 million people,” Marc Rosenblum, report author and the deputy director of MPI’s U.S. immigration policy program, said.

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