Secretary Naplitano Issues Action Directive

On Friday, January 30th, new Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano issued an Immigration and Border Security Action Directive.  Much of the directive could be beneficial to immigrants.  The directive signals a renewed desire to focus on criminals rather than immigrants who are only guilty of a violation of civil law, reduce the backlog in Green Card applications, and use all available immigration visas every year. 

However, the directive also contains some items that immigrant advocates find troubling such a a desire to expand state and local enforcement of immigration law under 287(g) agreements and using biometrics and data-mining as a supplement to the filed E-Verify program for employment authorization verification. 

Click here for the full text of the action directive.