Obama 'Lifts Shadow' of Deportation for Thousands of Young People
THE GUARDIAN: Civil rights groups hail president's order to end deportations for young people who came to America as children

The Obama administration has taken the biggest step towards granting legal status to undocumented immigrants in America in 25 years by ordering the end to deportations of law-abiding young people who came to the US as children.

Announcing the change in the Rose Garden of the White House on Friday, Obama said that it would remove the fear of deportation from young people known as Dreamers. "These are young people who study in our schools, play in our neighbourhoods, pledge allegiance to our flag. They are Americans in their heart and minds, and in every single way but one: paper."

The dramatic shift gives about 800,000 people the chance of gaining temporary legal status to live and work in the US[.] That makes this the most dramatic shift since Ronald Reagan granted an amnesty to 3 million largely Hispanic undocumented immigrants in 1987.

In a country sharply divided over what to do with the millions of people living illegally in the country, the controversial nature of the announcement was underlined by a heckler, later revealed to be Neil Munro of the the rightwing blog the [The] Daily Caller [blog post], who broke into Obama's address. The president, clearly furious, berated Munro for interrupting him.

The president went on to say: "Put yourselves in [the Dreamers'] shoes. Imagine you've done everything right your entire life, only to suddenly face deportation to a country you know nothing about with a language that you do not speak."

Obama added that it made no sense to deport young people who were making an extroardinary [sic] contribution to the US economy. » | Ed Pilkington | Friday, June 15, 2012

Boris’ Immigrants Amnesty Is 'Naïve'
THE OBSERVER: As London mayor's plan is attacked by Labour and his own party, a rift with Cameron looms

Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, was branded 'naive' yesterday after raising the prospect of an amnesty for illegal immigrants, a move that puts him in open opposition to Conservative leader David Cameron.

Johnson's plan to study the potential benefits of an amnesty was attacked by the government's Phil Woolas, who said it could lead to more people being exploited by traffickers. It was also ruled out by Johnson's own party, as shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve warned that an amnesty would be 'massively counter-productive'.

Woolas, the Immigration Minister, said: 'I think this is naive of the mayor. His comments might start with the best of intentions but will lead to more people-traffickers making more money and exploiting more vulnerable individuals.

'The UK Border Agency is committed to stopping illegal migration. We are putting in place the biggest shake-up of the immigration system for 45 years and are seeing the results. We are putting more resources into expelling foreign lawbreakers and last year we removed one person every eight minutes.'

Johnson's comments risk opening a rift between himself and Cameron, with whom he clashed on the issue of an amnesty earlier this year. It will do nothing to quell speculation that the maverick mayor is positioning himself as a rival to his party leader, particularly at a moment of Tory weakness in the polls.

Grieve told The Observer yesterday: 'Our policy remains unchanged. We're not in favour of having an amnesty, because the evidence is overwhelming that amnesties encourage more people to come into this country as illegal immigrants. We've considered this very carefully and remain firmly of the opinion that to have an amnesty at the present time with the current state of our borders would be potentially massively counter-productive. >>> David Smith | Sunday, November 23, 2008

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