Council Gearing Up to Implement Immigration Executive Order, Despite Court Challenges

The Observer – Jillian Jorgensen

President Barack Obama’s immigration reform executive order may be tied up in federal court—but that hasn’t stopped the New York City Council from getting ready to implement it, Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito told the Observer.

“We’re just trying to put the wheels in motion and be ready to really roll, fully, once we get the approval—and we believe that court case is going to be overturned, thrown out, whatever—so the executive order can move forward,” Ms. Mark-Viverto said in an interview yesterday at her City Hall office.

Mr. Obama’s executive order would expand the existing Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program—and, if enacted, would allow as many as five million undocumented immigrants, who came to this country under the age of 16 or have family who are legally here and have resided in the United States for five years to register to avoid deportation and work legally in the country, if they have no criminal record.

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