Former DHS Secretary Napolitano Calls For Executive Action on Immigration

Contributed by Aaron Hall, Partner

If, as expected, Congress does not address immigration reform by passing any legislation, Former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano supports executive action to step in and use lawful executive authorities to take action in the immigration arena.

While she did not address any parameters for a potential executive action, Napolitano described some of the behind the scenes maneuvering in the process for the 2012 executive action titled Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and explained that the DACA program could be “a good petri dish on how you set [a broader executive action] up, the budget stuff, all of those nuts and bolts.’’

President Obama has said that he intends to take executive action by the end of 2014 (after delaying on his previous statement that he would implement it by the end of summer).  Speculation is that the new executive action could resemble the DACA program but would impact a much broader class of potential applicants.

Further Reading:

-Washington Post story on Napolitano’s Statement

–Joseph & Hall P.C. DACA page