The "Gray" Area of Immigration

No one would argue that we are in the midst of a very heated political climate given the upcoming election year and current primaries that are underway.

Given that the topic of immigration and undocumented aliens is one that is highly debated, I would like to shed some light on some of the more controversial aspects of this issue. At the end of this past summer, President Obama issued a mandate passed down through Immigration and Customs Enforcement called “prosecutorial discretion.” Many anti-immigration pundits quickly criticized this political maneuver stating that it simply allowed for undocumented immigrants to continue living in the United States. However, this is only half the case. What “prosecutorial discretion” really entails is focusing our limited resources to deporting the people worth being deported. For instance, is it worth the time, effort, and perhaps most importantly, the tax payer’s money to deport an undocumented mother with and established family and no criminal background? Yes, it makes sense to deport an undocumented, convicted felon that serves as a threat to our society, but a little old lady that is just trying to make a better life for herself and her family? You be the judge.

Many people criticized this policy stating that is was giving these undocumented immigrants a free pass into the United States. Given the limited resources that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has, I think it makes a ton of sense. This policy also received a lot of praise from the pro-immigrant perspective. However, this is not to say that this policy is inherently flawed from even an immigration activist’s viewpoint. Simple stating that ICE is not going to actively pursue the deportation of many undocumented immigrants puts these people in some sort of a “gray” area. No they are no longer at risk of random deportation, as long as they do not commit a crime (even though undocumented immigrants are arrested, placed in detention, and put in deportation proceedings daily for crimes as minor as driving without a license), but they also have no real form of status in the U.S. They do not have a work permit to work legally, they cannot obtain a valid license, and they have no means to gain such status in the U.S. While at first glance the policy may seem to be in the best interests’ of the immigrants here in the U.S., the final outcome of said policy has yet to be decided.