Undocumented Students Praise Obama Administration Policy Change

NEW HAVEN—Two years ago, Carlos Castro’s sister was deported to Ecuador. About two months ago, Castro himself was detained by immigration officials, facing possible deportation as an illegal alien. The 25-year-old high school graduate, trained as an electrician, thought he might never get a chance to put his skills to work because of his immigration status.

On Saturday, the outlook for Carlos Castro changed—at least temporarily.

Carlos Castro speaks to reporters at the Yale Law School in New Haven on Monday. Castro (far right) was among several students who praised a change in federal immigration policy that will allow young undocumented immigrants to stay in the country temporarily if they meet certain conditions.

Castro was one of the about 30 high school and college-age students who gathered at the Yale Law School on Monday to praise a change in federal immigration policy that will allow some young undocumented immigrants to stay in the U.S. without fear of deportation—temporarily.

The change, announced Friday by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, will allow immigrants younger than 30 who immigrated to the U.S. as children and who do not pose a threat to national security to stay in the country and apply for work permits.

The Washington-based Migration Policy Institute estimated in 2010 that there were 11,000 to 20,000 undocumented immigrants in Connecticut under the age of 35, but those numbers do not match up exactly with the number of people who would be affected statewide by the new federal policy.

Nationally, the new immigration policy is expected to affect 800,000 to 1.4 million people.

To be eligible, young immigrants must be in school, have graduated from high school or have been honorably discharged from the military. They cannot have felony or significant misdemeanor convictions. They must have come to the U.S. before the age of 16 and have resided here at least five consecutive years.

Castro came to America from Ecuador with his family at the age of 7.

“My life is here,” he said. “I’ve experience everything here. I call myself American more than I call myself Ecuadorian.”

But what will happen to Castro after he reaches the age of 30 is unclear. The Obama administration has not yet said whether people who age out of the new policy’s conditions will be tracked down by immigration officials or allowed to continue the lives they have established in America.

Also unclear is how long the administration’s change will stay in place. The new protections aren’t  a modification of law—a proposal called the DREAM Act failed in Congress in 2010—but a change in administration policy. That policy could be changed back at any time, including after the November elections.

The new policy has already gotten pushback from some conservatives in Washington and immigration reform groups, such as the Danbury-based U.S. Citizens for Immigration Law Enforcement.

“I think the president is exercising powers he does not have under the Constitution,” said Elise Marciano, the group’s president. “We do have an immigration policy that has been in place for a very long time and he is usurping that or just ignoring it.”

But Monday in New Haven, the undocumented students expressed hope that the Obama administration would fully implement the newly announced changes.

“Immigrants contribute to the cultural diversity of American and its society,” said Lucas Codognolla, a Norwalk Community College graduate who was among the group at Yale. “For those of us who feel American in every sense of the word except having the documents, this announcement is very powerful.”