Secretary of Homeland Security meets with Pro Immigrant Executives
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The Secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, met with business leaders at a conference to discuss different immigration options. Immigration activists and supporters also showed up to hear what Johnson had to say and if there was any potential for progress.
The Obama administration has been put under a lot of pressure from pro-immigration advocates to issue an executive order for several things. Primarily, supporters want amnesty for undocumented immigrants and a complete stop to deportations.
Clearly neither of those have been done nor does the President plan to do so in the near future despite comments calling him “deporter-in-chief,” which studies have proved that the myths are false regarding skyrocketing deportation numbers. The Obama administration has been considering using administrative actions to limit “deportations of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally who don’t have serious criminal records.”
This most recent directive has had positive support but is only a temporary solution. The new order is predicted to shield tens of thousands of immigrations who would have otherwise been removed for small violations with the law.
While highlighting the key points of how the department has been handling the immigration situation, business executives including Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us group and Jimmie Williams of the McDonald’s Corporation asked the obvious question of what needs to be done to get “commonsense immigration reform.”
Businesses heavily rely on immigrant workers and when supply cannot meet demand, they turn to the government for explanations of why their policies are stalling business. Johnson spent hours speaking with various executives answering questions but could not promise anything in the near future. The government is taking small steps to curb deportations, but Congress cannot agree on one large overhaul big enough to change the entire immigration system.
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