Washington D.C. - After decades of congressional neglect, tonight President Obama took a crucial and courageous step toward reforming our immigration system. He announced that he will provide immediate relief for many of those impacted by of our broken system, and he is offering Congress an architecture for the permanent reforms that our country desperately needs.

Under the new policies announced, the Obama Administration will build on the successful Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program by providing temporary relief for the parents of U.S. Citizens and lawful permanent residents. The new program, to be called Deferred Action for Parents (DAP), will ensure that millions of U.S. Citizen and lawful permanent resident children will remain unified with their parents. The President also announced new enforcement policies and steps to improve the adjudication of business and family visas.

Mindful that the full impact of the President’s announcement will reveal itself in the months ahead, the American Immigration Council will keep a close watch over how the agencies administer these new policies. We will work to ensure that they are implemented in a way that respects fundamental principles of fairness and due process.

Since at least 1956, every U.S. President has granted temporary immigration relief to one or more groups in need of assistance. Like his predecessors, President Obama did not provide a permanent legal status to anyone – only Congress can do that.

The American Immigration Council applauds this long-fought reform for immigrant families, but we keep in mind the millions left untouched by the announcement today. Rather than look for ways to block reform, Congress should do its job to fix our broken immigration system and provide undocumented immigrants in this nation a full and meaningful shot at citizenship.

Please visit www.AmericanImmigrationCouncil.org in the coming days for additional details on the announcement.

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For more information, contact Wendy Feliz at [email protected] or 202-812-2499.