Some families with children in Culver City schools will likely be among the estimated five million people affected by President Obama’s executive order on immigration reform, according to past and present local officeholders.
Gary Silbiger, who is an immigration attorney and former Culver City mayor, praised the president’s Nov. 20 announcement as a “humane way of keeping families together. People who have compassion for people from other lands will be happy about this.”
Culver City Unified School Board President Laura Chardiet also supports President Obama’s move to expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to young people who came to this country before turning 16 years old and have been present since Jan. 1, 2010, and extending the period of the act and work authorization from two years to three.
“People don’t realize that there are a lot of families in Culver City and elsewhere that want the best for their children, just like American families do. People don’t know that there are families that are intact and who are working and being good citizens but who face the possibility of being deported at any minute,” said Chardiet, former English as a second language teacher at Culver City Adult School.
According to data from the White House and the website migration policy.org. an estimated 4.1 million undocumented immigrants who are parents of children who are American citizens or who are legal residents could be eligible for relief from deportation under the president’s executive order. California has the highest number at 1,116,000.
A Pew Center Research poll found that the Golden State has the second highest percentage of K-12 students behind Nevada with at least one parent who does not have legal status.
Obama’s executive order will allow affect parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents who have been present in the country since Jan. 1, 2010, to request deferred action and employment authorization for three years, in a new Deferred Action for Parental Accountability program, provided they pass required background checks.
Those eligible under the new guidelines will be required to pay taxes and pass a background check and must have been in the country for at least five years. Parents who meet these criteria will be eligible to apply for work permits.
Parents of “Dreamers,” or those who were brought into the United States as young children, will not be protected by the new policy. Another group that will remain vulnerable to deportation are farm workers, although administration officials say they will focus deportation efforts on undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes. Chardiet noted that the Culver City school district has a high number of Latino children and while all of the students’ parents are not undocumented, the Obama administration’s new policy could help keep some of these families intact.
“I think the public would support this even more if they realized who is at risk of being deported and how this can affect our schools and children’s education, as well as breaking up hard working families,” she said.
Republicans have called the president’s actions unconstitutional and some- such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) have urged their colleagues to block the president’s nominees as retaliation. “We are not going to shut the government down, but we are going to shut down this president and his actions,” Texas Rep. Michael McCaul (R- Texas) said on the CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
But Rep. Karen Bass (D- Culver City) takes issue with the claim that Obama has acted illegally or has not given Republicans time to produce their own immigration reform bill. In a statement after the president announced his executive order, Bass pointed out that this was not the first time that a U.S. president had acted on immigration reform with an executive order.
“President Obama is not the first president to take this kind of action. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush took similar action when they extended legal status to family members who were not covered by changes to immigration law,” the congresswoman noted. “Members of Congress from both parties welcomed these actions because it was the right thing to do for families, and they should welcome it again now.
“The American government should do everything within its power to keep families together. I have met with constituents in my district who come from many countries across several continents,” Bass continued. “They have pleaded with me to fix our broken immigration system, but while these people suffer and families are separated from one another, Republicans in Congress have done nothing.”
The U.S Senate passed an immigration bill last year but House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner has not allowed a floor vote on the bill. UCLA law Prof. Adam Winkler, a constitutional law specialist, said claims of the president’s executive order not meeting legal muster were specious. “It’s overblown political rhetoric,” Winkler said. “There is no court that will overturn President Obama’s executive order. The president clearly has the authority to set policy for the enforcement of immigration.”
Silbiger said he has clients that will be affected by the new change in immigration policy, but not all of them will benefit. “That’s why we need Congress to step up and pass immigration reform. It will bring people out of the shadows and into the sunlight,” Silbiger said.
