(Bill Stamps, KUHF Public Radio)
Friday’s move by President Obama to loosen immigration rules for younger illegal immigrants stands to impact perhaps tens of thousands of people here in the Houston area.
The new policy affects those who were brought into the U.S. illegally by their families. If they came to the U.S. before they were sixteen, don’t have a criminal record and are not a security risk, then they no longer have to worry about being deported.
Gordan Quan is a Houston immigration rights attorney, who says the move by the president is the right thing to do. “I’ve counseled young people who graduated valedictorian in their class. No working knowledge of Spanish, but yet had no legal status, worried about how they could go to college, what careers they could have, looking to possibly even immigrant to Canada since they had no chance for immigration to the United States.”
The new policy also allows the young immigrants to apply for two year work permits that can be renewed unlimited times. Quan says the old policy was unfair. Many children had no choice and were brought to the U.S. by their parents, but as they grew up and went to school, they weren’t allowed to work like everyone else.
“I met one young man, who was a graduate of Texas A&M, two degrees a master’s degree in computer science. He set up his own company, because he could not work for anybody. He had to contract his own services out to other people. That’s the only way he could pay taxes and be employed. Otherwise, he’d have to work on a cash basis and not be paying taxes.”
(Hear the full story at KUHF Public Radio)
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