According to an internal U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services memo going the rounds of Capitol Hill and obtained by National Review,
the agency is considering ways in which it could enact "meaningful
immigration reform absent legislative action” — that is, without the
consent of the American people through a vote in Congress.

"This memorandum offers administrative relief options to . . . reduce
the threat of removal for certain individuals present in the United
States without authorization,” it reads.

Also: "In the absence of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, USCIS can
extend benefits and/or protections to many individuals and groups by
issuing new guidance and regulations, exercising discretion with regard
to parole-in-place, deferred action and the issuance of Notices to
Appear (NTA), and adopting significant process improvements.”

In recent weeks, Sen. Chuck Grassley and others in Congress have been
pressing the administration to disavow rumors that a de facto amnesty
is in the works, including in a letter to Department of Homeland Security
head Janet Napolitano. "Since the senators first wrote to the president
more than a month ago, we have not been reassured that the plans are
just rumors, and we have every reason to believe that the memo is
legitimate,” a Grassley spokesman tells NR.  (NR contacted DHS, but a spokesman did not have a comment on the record.)






Many of the memo’s proposals are technical and fine-grained; for
example, it suggests clarifying the immigration laws for "unaccompanied
minors, and for victims of human trafficking, domestic violence, and
other criminal activities.” It also proposes extending the "grace
period” H-1B visa holders have between the expiration of their visa and
the date they’re expected to leave the country.

With other ideas, however, USCIS is aiming big. Perhaps the most
egregious suggestion is to "Increase the Use of Deferred Action.”
"Deferred action,” as the memo defines it, "is an exercise of
prosecutorial discretion not to pursue removal from the U.S. of a
particular individual for a specific period of time.” For example, after
Hurricane Katrina, the government decided not to remove illegal
immigrants who’d been affected by the disaster.

The memo claims that there are no limits to USCIS’s ability to use
deferred action, but warns that using this power indiscriminately would
be "controversial, not to mention expensive.” The memo suggests using
deferred action to exempt "particular groups” from removal — such as the
illegal-immigrant high-school graduates who would fall under the DREAM
Act (a measure that has been shot down repeatedly in Congress). The memo
claims that the DREAM Act would cover "an estimated 50,000”
individuals, though as many as 65,000 illegal immigrants graduate high school every year in the U.S.

In the immediate wake of the court decision blocking the Arizona
immigration law yesterday, the memo is sure to create controversy — and
the sense that the administration is bent on preserving and extending
the nation’s de facto amnesty.

UPDATE: USCIS has released a statement on the memo: