Poll: Do You Agree With President Obama's Immigration Policy?

The Obama administration announced that it will no longer deport younger immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally when they were children and will begin issuing work permits to them, The Huffington Post reported.

The permits only would be available to individuals who had led law-abiding lives, the website reported. As many as 800,000 people could be affected by the policy change.

The bill stipulates that to be eligible for the permit, the immigrants must be between the ages 16-30 and have lived in the U.S. for more than five consecutive years. They must also have no criminal record and have recieved a high school diploma or a GED.

The policy change accomplishes many of the goals of the Federal DREAM Act, which passed the House in 2010 but stalled in the Senate, the Huffington Post reported.

"This grant of deferred action is not immunity," the Huffington Post quote Napolitano as saying. "It is not amnesty. It is an exercise of discretion so that these young people are not in the removal system. It will help us to continue to streamline immigration enforcement and ensure that resources are not spent pursuing the removal of low-priority cases involving productive young people."

The Los Angeles Times reported that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said that the policy change "ignores the rule of law that is the foundation of our democracy. This huge policy shift has horrible consequences for unemployed Americans looking for jobs and violates President Obama’s oath to uphold the laws of this land."

Florida Congressman Allen West told Fox News that the policy change was an example of "executive overreach." West told Fox that the change should have been debated as legislation by Congress.

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