Deferred action would not be legal status but would come with a three-year renewable employment authorization document (work permit) and exemption from deportation.
[6][7] When pressed to take unilateral executive action to limit deportations on Univision in March 2014, President Barack Obama replied "until Congress passes a new law, then I am constrained in terms of what I am able to do.
[6][9] However, the next day House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his primary election, so on June 30, Speaker John Boehner announced that he would not bring the bill to a vote.
[6] That same day, President Obama delivered remarks in the White House Rose Garden promising to "fix as much of our immigration system as I can on my own, without Congress.
[16] The President's program, when combined with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, would have delayed deportation of slightly less than half of the 11 million undocumented people in the United States.
[28] Judge Carolyn Dineen King dissented, arguing that prosecutorial discretion makes the case non-justiciable, and that there had been "no justification" for the circuit court's delay in ruling.
[29] Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton attempted to prolong consideration of the case until the next October term but the Supreme Court only granted him an eight-day extension to file his opposition brief.
[35] On January 15, 2015, the Migration Policy Institute estimated that about 3.7 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States are potentially eligible for DAPA, around 766,000 in just five counties: Los Angeles and Orange in California, Harris and Dallas in Texas, and Cook in Illinois.
[36] The President's program, when combined with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, would have delayed deportation of slightly less than half of the 11 million people in the United States who are undocumented.