Obama’s Immigration Policy: What Will This Mean for Families With Young Children?

President Obama’s announcement Friday that his administration will stop deporting eligible undocumented people under the age of 30 is certain to provide fodder for more election-season debates over immigration. Politics aside, however, the new policy will certainly make waves in early learning centers, schools and social services agencies, where children and young parents affected by the new policy are likely to interact with schools and government programs in new ways.  

Under the new policy, undocumented residents under 30 will be allowed to reside in the United States if they meet a set of criteria, such as having arrived in the United States before the age of 16 or having either a high school diploma, GED or serving in the military. The policy does not provide a path to citizenship, like many Democrat versions of the DREAM Act have in the past.

Below, three of our biggest questions on what’s to come:

1) Will parents with children in states with strict immigration laws actually feel more protected? Will those states bend to meet the spirit of the federal policy?

The administration is emphasizing that it wants to focus resources on deporting people that pose a “national security or public safety risk,” and less on deporting as many illegal immigrants as possible, regardless of their contributions to society.

But the new policy, which the Associated Press estimates will affect up to 800,000 young people, doesn’t necessarily change the mood in states such as Alabama, where a law passed last year (and currently being challenged by the Obama administration in the 11^th circuit U.S. Court of Appeals) requires children to document their immigration status when they enroll in school. Many believe that the law is intimidating families with more than one undocumented member, and even preventing them from sending their children to school — despite the fact that undocumented children have the right to a public education in the U.S.

2) Will the new policy have any effect on families’ enrollment in home visiting programs or on children’s enrollment in child care and pre-K programs? Parents who reside in the United States illegally have been known anecdotally to shy away from enrolling in home visiting programs and/or state-funded pre-K for fear that government officials could find out the immigration status of the family. It’s possible, then, that young immigrant parents in good standing with the government will be more inclined to enroll in such programs in the future.

3) How many parents with young children, illegal or legal, will be affected? Many parents under 30 are now eligible to stay in the United States, but there is a limit to how helpful this will be: For example, under the new policy, an undocumented 8-year old with parents over 30 still risks losing his or her parents due to deportation.

Ensuring that immigrant children grow up without their parents being deported isn’t the explicit goal of the new policy. It’s something to keep in mind, however, as these policies evolve and change in the future. If providing immigrant children with solid education and life opportunities and focusing immigration enforcement on those who pose security and public safety risks is the ultimate goal, then policies that help keep families together while kids are growing up is a logical next step, though it’s unlikely we’ll see much further action on this front until Congress takes up the long-overdue issue of comprehensive immigration reform.

UPDATE 6/19: The Foundation for Child Development (full disclosure: one of our funders) released a report this morning that reiterates why this issue should carry more weight: Children in Immigrant Families provides a detailed assessment of trends in the well-being of the one in four children who are the sons and daughters of immigrants.