Obama amnesty undercut by sky-high applications approval rate for Dreamers

President Obama’s deportation amnesty for illegal immigrant Dreamers approved 93 percent of all applications decided through December — a strikingly high number that will likely play a role next month when the Supreme Court hears a legal challenge to a broader amnesty.

The program for Dreamers was considered a test run for the broader amnesty Mr. Obama announced in late 2014, and which has been held up by lower courts as judges sort out whether the administration had the authority to grant tentative stays of deportation, issue work permits and make illegal immigrants eligible for some taxpayer benefits.

For Mr. Obama, the key to his argument is that he is not rewriting the law but only offering guidance on how to prioritize enforcement. He insists his officers still have discretion in every case to grant or deny amnesty, even if someone meets all the criteria for the program, known in governmentspeak as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.

But his opponents say the 93 percent approval rate undercuts that argument.

“It tells me that they’re rubber-stamping DACA applications. Any program that four years after its initiation is still approving 93 percent of applicants is a program that doesn’t have very high standards,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for an immigration crackdown.

More