The “New” Obama Enforcement Policy: Rumor and Reality
It was not yet noon on August 18 when our phone began ringing with people wanting to know how to “turn themselves in” to ICE in order to get a work permit. By the time we got good information later that day on the Obama Administration’s new enforcement policy, the rumor mill was already running. Since then, we have heard that unscrupulous “notarios” and other dishonest people are already preying on the hopes and fears of undocumented immigrants, charging fees to put people on a nonexistent “list” for work permission. Worse than that, people were actively turning themselves in to ICE, assuming that they would receive some sort of amnesty and work permission. Many of those individuals are probably sitting in ICE custody right now wondering what went wrong. In order to keep these scenes from reoccurring, this column provides some basic information on what the “new” enforcement policy is, […]