Americas

Home page

Americas

U.S. to ease deportations of illegal immigrants

19 August 2011 01:55 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The Obama administration will undertake a case-by-case review of illegal immigrants who are facing deportations from the country, the White House announced Thursday, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

"DHS (the Department of Homeland Security), along with the Department of Justice, will be reviewing the current deportation caseload to clear out low-priority cases on a case-by-case basis and make more room to deport people who have been convicted of crimes or pose a security risk," the White House said in a blog article posted on its website.

The policy change comes at a time when Obama is under increasing pressure from Hispanic groups who blast the president for having deported record-number of illegal immigrants. Last year, the Obama administration deported nearly 400,000 people, with fewer than half of those being convicted criminals.

There are more than 10 million people who are in the U.S. illegally, and a large number of them are Hispanics, a key voting bloc which helped send Obama into the White House in 2008. The president had repeatedly expressed his commitment to pursuing comprehensive immigration reform and providing qualified illegal immigrants with a path to gain legal status, but has so far fulfilled little in this regard.