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President Obama announced Thursday night that temporary legal status will be extended to millions of undocumented immigrants who meet certain criteria. The government will expand the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, giving temporary legal status to undocumented immigrants born after 1981, brought to the U.S. before age 16 and 2010. Undocumented parents of U.S. citizen or legal resident children can apply for temporary legal status in 2015 if they are low-priority for deportation and can prove that they have lived in the U.S. for five years. They will have to pass background checks and pay fees in return for protection from deportation and work permits. A White House document called “5 Things to Know About How President Obama’s Actions Impacts Undocumented Immigrants” notes that the president’s actions “increase the chances that anyone attempting to cross the border illegally today will be caught and then sent back.”
“I know some of the critics of this action call it amnesty,” Obama said in his address. “Well, it’s not. Amnesty is the immigration system we have today—millions of people who live here without paying their taxes or playing by the rules, while politicians use the issue to scare people and whip up votes at election time. That’s the real amnesty–leaving this broken system the way it is. Mass amnesty would be unfair. Mass deportation would be both impossible and contrary to our character. What I’m describing is accountability—a common sense, middle-ground approach: If you meet the criteria, you can come out of the shadows and get right with the law.”