Immigration Reform Moves Forward In White House Meeting With Hispanic Caucus

Ruby Cramer BuzzFeed Staff

U.S. Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez met Tuesday with Obama administration officials to discuss the path forward on comprehensive immigration reform. Image by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Posted Jan 16, 2013 3:15pm EST

Representative Luis Gutierrez and five other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus met with White House officials Tuesday in the Roosevelt Room to discuss the administration's plan to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform, the Illinois Congressman, a key figure on the issue, told BuzzFeed.

"It's clear to me from that meeting that they have a plan, they're working, and their team is expanding," he said.

Gutierrez said the discussion surrounded "who goes first" — the Senate, House, or White House — on the push for immigration legislation. "We talked about what the president wants and what his vision is," said Gutierrez. "And I gotta tell you, we're in a good place."

As evidence of the momentum on immigration, Gutierrez compared Tuesday's meeting with one he had in March 2009 — which he found lacking — with the president and White House officials.

"In March 2009, it's like, no, I don't have a plan, I don't have anybody in charge, and I don't have a team of people working on this," said Gutierrez, who was told at the 2009 meeting that the figure heading up immigration would be then-chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

"The chief of staff is in charge of everything. It was like being told there was no one in charge," he said. (Gutierrez declined to the Obama officials present for Wednesday's meeting.)

Cecilia Muñoz, White House Director of the Domestic Policy Council, will likely take a leading role, he said. "Cecilia has been in every meeting I've had with the president. She's been the link," said Gutierrez.

As discussions continue in the House and Senate — particularly around Sen. Marco Rubio, who laid out his immigration plan in the Wall Street Journal last week — a more solid path forward for Congress and the Obama administration would emerge, said Gutierrez, "by the end of February or early March."

Immigration reform will also be a central focus of the president's State of the Union address next month, said the Congressman.

"The president has spoken about it in his last three State of the Unions. You can speak about something without it really being remembered. But something tells me you're gonna remember immigration in this State of the Union address," he said.

The meeting, called Monday, was a show of assurance to immigration advocates in Congress that reform remains a priority despite the administration's recent focus on the fiscal cliff and gun control.

"It's a big priority, and it's gonna be an all-out press," said Gutierrez. "There's a team of people that the White House is working on this. They made clear to us that the team was evolving and expanding."

Immigration Change to Ease Family Separations

By JULIA PRESTON

Published: January 2, 2013

Obama administration officials unveiled rules on Wednesday that will allow many American citizens — perhaps hundreds of thousands — to avoid long separations from immediate family members who are illegal immigrants as they apply to become legal residents.

The rules, announced by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, create a waiver that bypasses an arcane Catch-22 in immigration law. It had presented Americans with the prospect of being separated for up to a decade from immigrant spouses, children or parents who were applying for the legal documents known as green cards.

Until now, the risks for those immigrants of leaving the United States to return to their native countries to pick up their visas, even ones that were already approved, had been so great that countless families decided not to apply, adding to the numbers of immigrants living illegally in this country.

The immigration authorities will begin accepting applications for the waivers on March 3. Administration officials first announced the policy change a year ago, but they have been receiving public comments and making revisions before publishing the final rules.

It is generally straightforward for American citizens to obtain green cards for foreign-born spouses or minor children, and in some cases for parents. But if the immigrants entered the United States illegally, they must return to their native countries to receive their visas from American consulates there. However, under a 1996 statute, once illegal immigrants leave this country, they are barred automatically from returning for at least three and as many as 10 years.

Even immigrants who did not incur any bars to re-entry were often stranded overseas for many months while consulates completed their applications.

With the new rules, Americans’ family members can apply in the United States for a waiver from the bars to re-entry, before they leave to pick up their visas. Officials estimated the time immigrants would have to spend out of the country would be reduced to “a matter of weeks.”

“One of the critical benefits is that the individual will not be separated from the United States citizen family member during the application process,” said Alejandro Mayorkas, the director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that issues green cards.

For immigrants, officials said, having an approved waiver in hand before leaving the country would also eliminate many doubts about whether they would ultimately receive their visas.

“This rule is leaps and bounds better than what we have now,” said Laura Lichter, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “For families that were sitting on the fence, unwilling to subject their loved ones to the uncertainty, now they don’t have to wait.”

Ms. Lichter said many families would still face a hurdle in coming up with the $585 application fee for the waiver.

One American who was heartened by the new rule is Erika Torres, 30. She has been married for six years to a Mexican man who was brought illegally to the United States 24 years ago, when he was 8. Ms. Torres, speaking by telephone on Wednesday, said she and her husband, who have known each other since they were children, now own a home and a winemaking business in Cambria, Calif.

Like many Americans, Ms. Torres said she expected no difficulty gaining legal documents for her husband once they were married. But after learning about the convoluted visa process, she said, “We have waited because we were just terrified of the separation.”

Ms. Torres said her husband would probably have to collect his visa from the American Consulate in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, a city racked by drug trafficking violence. “He would be a prime target for kidnappers,” she said.

“We are a team,” Ms. Torres said, adding that she feared she would not be able to sustain their business without her husband’s help. She said they would apply for a waiver as soon as they became available.

The rules do not give any legal status to illegal immigrants or shortcut the underlying application. In order to receive green cards, immigrants must still show that it would cause “extreme hardship” to an American citizen if they were deported.

“It is a limited change, but a definitely a good step forward in the right direction,” said Randall Emery, president of American Families United, an organization of thousands of Americans with family members who are illegal immigrants.

Ms. Lichter called on Congress to change the law to eliminate the snag created by the automatic bars. “This is a great solution to a problem that should never have existed in the first place,” she said.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 3, 2013, on page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: Immigration Change to Ease Family Separations.

Opinion: L.A. police put new piece in immigration policy patchwork

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_22176482/opinion-l-police-put-new-piece-immigration-policy?source=rss

Posted: 12/12/2012 10:00:08 AM PST

December 12, 2012 6:15 PM GMTUpdated: 12/12/2012 10:15:02 AM PST

Los Angeles has new details today about the police department's shrinking participation in the Secure Communities program, under which local cops share arrestees' fingerprints with federal immigration authorities.

Chief Charlie Beck had announced in October that the LAPD would stop honoring federal requests to detain illegal immigrants arrested for other crimes -- at least those nabbed for non-serious offenses -- for 48 hours until U.S. agents come and get them. L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca followed up with a similar change in his department's policy last week. That sparked an editorial here today.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris issued new guidelines last week that made participation in Secure Communities voluntary.

The editorial board believes questions about what to do with suspected illegal immigrants should be settled not by individual law-enforcement agencies but by lawmakers on the state level and -- better sooner than later -- in Congress.

In fact, a new bill regarding Secure Communities has been introduced in the California Assembly.

Tuesday, the L.A. Police Commission acted on Beck's request and set a policy to no longer honor detention requests for arrestees assigned bail of less than $5,000. The policy is to take effect in January and its effect examined after six months.

Details of the sheriff's new policy are to come.

State and federal lawmakers must work urgently to replace this patchwork of immigration policies with a cohesive plan.  

-- Opinion staff

 

 

Baca shifts course on compliance with deportation program

latimes.com/news/local/la-me-baca-immigration-20121206,0,6431789.story

The L.A. County Sheriff's Department will not detain suspected illegal immigrants arrested in low-level crimes. The state attorney general's directive is cited as the reason.

By Cindy Chang, Los Angeles Times

December 6, 2012

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has reversed his support for a controversial deportation program, announcing Wednesday that he will not comply with federal requests to detain suspected illegal immigrants arrested in low-level crimes.

The sheriff's dramatic turnaround came a day after California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris issued a legal directive advising that compliance with the requests is discretionary, not mandatory.

Until then, Baca had insisted that he would honor the requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold some defendants for up to 48 hours. He was an outspoken opponent of the Trust Act, which would have required California law enforcement officials to disregard the requests in many cases, declaring that he would defy the measure if it passed.

Baca has also been sued by the American Civil Liberties Union for allegedly denying bail to immigration detainees.

Now, he appears ready to do more or less what was proposed in the Trust Act, which was vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown in September.

The change of heart from Baca, a Republican in a heavily Democratic county, comes as GOP leaders are warming to immigration reform in an effort to counteract dismal support from Latino voters. Last month, Baca closed the 1,100-bed Mira Loma immigration detention center, which earned his agency up to $154 a day for each detainee, after contract negotiations with ICE broke down.

None of those considerations were at play, a Baca spokesman said. The sheriff's reversal was prompted solely by Harris' opinion, which contradicted advice from Los Angeles County attorneys that the requests were mandatory, said the spokesman, Steve Whitmore.

Baca joins Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, who announced a similar policy in October. San Francisco and Santa Clara counties also decline to honor some types of ICE holds.

The change may not take effect until early next year. Baca's staff must first flesh out the details of the new policy, which would apply only to those arrested in misdemeanors who do not have significant criminal records. The department would still honor federal detention requests for those accused of serious or violent crimes.

Under the federal Secure Communities program, all arrestees' fingerprints are sent to immigration officials, who flag suspected illegal immigrants and request that they be held for up to 48 hours until transfer to federal custody.

Secure Communities has come under fire for ensnaring minor offenders when its stated purpose is to deport dangerous criminals and repeat immigration violators. According to federal statistics, fewer than half of those deported in Los Angeles County since the program's inception in 2008 have committed felonies or multiple misdemeanors. Critics say immigrants have become fearful of cooperating with police.

"The last thing we want is victims to be frightened to come forward," Whitmore said.

ICE officials said Baca's new policy is in line with federal priorities and will affect only a "very small number" of cases.

"The identification and removal of criminal offenders and other public safety threats is U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's highest enforcement priority," the agency said in a statement.

Immigrant rights advocates called Baca's announcement a long overdue breakthrough.

"This will send a very strong message nationwide that in ... the most multicultural city in the nation, the sheriff is there to protect and to serve, not to deport," said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, communications director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

Supporters of the Trust Act, which was reintroduced in modified form by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) earlier this week, said it is still necessary because detention policies should not vary by jurisdiction.

"It's imperative that California have a uniform statewide policy. It's essential that people not receive different treatment under the law as they're driving up and down the 5," said Chris Newman, legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

Baca has not taken a position on the new Trust Act, which is likely to evolve during the legislative process, Whitmore said.

cindy.chang@latimes.com

Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times

 

Caught in the current of reverse migration

WITHOUT A COUNTRY

Thousands of U.S.-born children now live throughout Mexico as a result of deportation of a family member. Disoriented, they struggle in a society that views them with a mix of envy and pity.

By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times
October 21, 2012

CUATRO MILPAS, MEXICO— In this hardscrabble farming village, an American teenager like Luis Martinez was bound to stand out.

Raised on Little Caesars pizzas and Big Gulps, Luis, 13, was portly. The village kids, subsisting on bowls of chicken broth, were all bones and elbows.

Luis wore Air Jordan high-tops. The kids wore sandals made of rubber tires.

PHOTOS: Teenager's identity lies on both sides of the border

He shot at birds with his BB gun and pedaled around on a Mongoose bike. They scurried up mango trees and chased iguanas.

He seemed like many visitors from America, with new clothes and good health, and the quiet confidence of someone who knew he wouldn't have to endure this place very long.

Then one day Luis and his step-grandfather, Juan Leyva, started standing up sheets of scrap metal on a treeless patch of dirt. They covered the jagged edges with cardboard, straightened the frame and slid corrugated metal sheets atop the walls, fastening it all together with electrical wire.

FULL COVERAGE: Without a country

The teenager they had treated like a rich American cousin was going to live with his family in a shack, next to a chicken coop.

That summer night in 2010, Luis fell asleep on a squeaky mattress next to his baby sister and his dog-eared Harry Potter book, one of the treasured possessions from his days at James Madison Elementary School in Ogden, Utah.

"He was a very good kid," said Daniel Ibarra, 43, who had watched Luis patch together the shanty on that summer day. "But he was poor — poorer than the poorest person here."

Luis never imagined living a peasant's life in Sinaloa. But like other children whose parents or other family members were deported, he was swept into the current of reverse migration. Thousands of U.S.-born children of former illegal immigrants now live in cities and towns across Mexico. Disoriented by cultural differences and often unable to speak the language, they often struggle, clinging to one another in a society that views them with a mix of envy and pity.

Luis' life spiraled further than most. After Leyva, the breadwinner of the family, was deported in 2010, the family languished in Ogden. Eventually, Dominga Leyva, 49, the boy's maternal grandmother and a U.S. citizen, packed her grandson and his 3-month-old sister, Amor, into their Oldsmobile Alero and drove to the Mexican border town of Nogales.

Juan Leyva got in, and they began the 500-mile drive to the western Mexican state of Sinaloa, passing endless rows of vegetable fields to a one-road village where shirts hung from barbed-wire clotheslines, stray dogs feasted on corn husks and boys playfully swung machetes at stick fences.

"Dónde está Ooo-tah?" the students asked the chubby-cheeked norteamericano with the gringo accent. Where is Utah?

Luis told them of days ice fishing and snowboarding, of falling asleep on the couch watching horror movies. Back there, he had five video game players, indoor plumbing and shelves full of comics.

It seemed far-fetched; many of the children at the two-room schoolhouse considered them tall tales. When they asked why he came to Mexico, he told them that Leyva had been deported for driving without a license. "They called him a dummy," Luis said.

But Luis could never blame Leyva. His U.S.-born mother, who struggled with drugs, was in prison, and he never knew his biological father. Luis loved his step-grandfather — he called him Dad. Leyva, a wiry man with an easy smile, told everyone that Luis was his son.

In Utah, Leyva had supported the family by working on construction crews, a roofer for all seasons who drew curious stares from passers-by when he pounded shingles in snowstorms. "A man in a car called him 'crazy Mexican,'" Luis recalled proudly.

In Sinaloa, Leyva, 39, toiled even harder, but snow wasn't the problem.

He picked vegetables in the torrid plains inland from the Sea of Cortez, where his family had worked for generations. His light skin would shrivel and turn red, earning him the nickname Ciruela, or prune.

At school, Luis ducked behind torn textbooks, a teenager unable to read Spanish in lessons aimed at 7-year-olds. He soon dropped out, hoping to boost the family's finances by joining Leyva and his grandmother in the jalapeño fields. He got sunstroke the first day and his skin blistered and turned red. The villagers started calling him, Ciruelita, little prune.

On many days, Luis picked vegetables alongside the same children who had envied him when they first met. Now they felt sorry for him, urging him to cloak his skin in a flannel shirt and a hoodie. But Luis withered in the intense heat.

One day a crop-duster zipped low over the tomato fields. Everyone ducked, except him. He was sprayed with a pesticide that coated his arms in an orange liquid. He scrubbed it off in the irrigation canal, but it did not stop the itch.

Luis returned to the fields, this time wearing the tool belt of a chanatero, a human scarecrow tasked with ridding tomato fields of chanates — blackbirds. Up and down the rows he walked, rattling rock-filled bottles, firing off bottle rockets with a flame-tipped stick that he wielded like a wand.

His newfound ability to paint the sky black with flocks of startled birds delighted a boy who enjoyed the fantasy tales of Harry Potter. Alone in the maze of tomato plants, he could raise a ruckus, set off explosions, shout at the top of his lungs.

"It was like yelling out your anger," Luis said. "I liked that part."

The harvest season ended. Luis took to walking up and down the canals and railroad tracks, scavenging for tuna cans and metal scraps. His clothes turned to rags, his weight loss accelerated. He looked like a scarecrow.

"The poor boy. He lived a precarious existence," said bodega owner Jesus Alfredo Gaxiola, who often gave the teenager and his sister crackers and Coca-Cola. "I would ask him, 'What are you doing here? You have [U.S. citizenship]. You're only suffering here.'"

After a year earning only $10 per day in the fields, Leyva and Dominga were almost broke. Even the money they got selling the Alero was gone. One morning in May 2011, Leyva and Luis woke up and started taking down the walls of their home. They reduced the shack to a pile of scrap within a couple of hours. A recycler gave them $40 — enough money, along with some borrowed funds, to buy four bus tickets to the border.

At the border crossing station in Nogales, Ariz., the U.S. Customs officer eyed Luis' creased birth certificate. According to the document, the youngster was born in El Paso. But was this scrawny boy in front of him the same Luis Martinez listed on the paper?

Luis watched the plump people in clean clothes walking through the turnstile into Arizona, hoping and praying he would soon be following them down shop-lined North Grand Avenue. But agents at the Nogales port of entry were on guard against one of the oldest smuggling tricks: American women attempting to pass off illegal immigrant children as their own grandkids. They were also on the lookout for child abductions in disputed custody cases.

Dominga Leyva didn't share the children's last names. Nor could she show proof of custody. With her Utah driver's license and birth certificate, she was free to enter the U.S., the officer said, but not the children — at least not until she provided a power of attorney document, signed by the boy's biological mother. But Dominga's daughter was in prison in Utah.

Dominga grabbed the documents and turned back, crying. Luis walked past the long line of people waiting to cross. The looks of pity angered him. "I felt really bad, like I was being betrayed by my own country," Luis said. "I wanted to yell, 'I'm an American!'"

Sinaloa had been harsh. The Mexican border city of Nogales was harsher.

The family slept on park benches next to a four-lane highway. They scoured the streets for aluminum cans. On good days, they earned enough for a loaf of bread and some slices of ham. On many days, they went hungry. Once, workers at a migrant shelter took pity on the bedraggled American family and let them dine with deported illegal immigrants.

Luis dropped to 115 pounds, 50 pounds lighter than his Utah days. Dominga had to re-stitch his nylon basketball shorts so they wouldn't fall to his ankles. Leyva sought day labor work, waving at passing cars to no avail. The guilt of seeing his family suffering weighed on him.
"If I'm hungry, I can endure, but the children can't," Leyva said.

Leyva hatched a desperate plan. He found smugglers willing to guide Dominga, Luis and Amor through the high desert. The smugglers wondered: Was it even illegal to smuggle U.S. citizens into their own country? The risks would be lower — they just needed to get the family to Nogales, not through the checkpoints farther inland. They offered a discounted fee: $500.
Much of the money for the trip came from a most unexpected source.

Every day in late spring of 2011, giant construction cranes rose above the border. Hard-hatted U.S. government contractors were tearing down the border fence to make way for a taller barrier. Every day, they flung pieces of the old fence into Mexico, where frenzied mobs vied for the scraps.

Some people used the metal panels to build shanties. Luis and Leyva had other ideas. Scrap was selling for two pesos per kilo, so each 80-pound sheet could fetch about $8 from recyclers. It would take a small mountain of scrap, but they could start.

Each day they awoke at 2 a.m. and walked into the hills toward the construction site. When they came upon a fence panel, each would grab a jagged end and haul it to a waiting recycling truck. Then they would scramble back into the unruly line for a chance at another piece.

Three miles of fencing was replaced. Luis and Leyva shadowed the crews almost the entire way.

The two smugglers kept a fast pace through the canyons of the Pajarito Mountains. Luis struggled to keep up, his arms sagging under the weight of his 20-month-old sister. He looked back and saw his grandmother illuminated under the crescent moon, her labored breathing drowned out by the rustling of mesquite bushes. She was hobbling on her arthritic knee, clutching her purse, which contained their birth certificates.

Leyva had stayed behind, holding back tears as he watched them get into the smugglers' van. He would try some other day, he promised.

The men kept their flashlight beams low. Luis remembered their instructions: Don't talk, don't look at anyone on the trail and, if U.S. Border Patrol agents appear, claim to be lost hikers.
For nearly two days, they walked under craggy ridges and limestone bluffs. Luis never slept, fearing the smugglers would abandon them. At times, Amor's cries pierced the silence. Luis would play with her to calm her down under the impatient stares of the smugglers.

The smugglers were edgy for good reason. A few months earlier, bandits had ambushed a squad of U.S. Border Patrol agents, killing one. The smugglers had already stumbled upon one standoff between groups of Mexicans. They kept their cool and led the family down the trail, away from trouble.

When the group emerged from Peña Blanca Canyon in the predawn darkness, a car was waiting for them near a small lake. They jumped in and sped out of the wilderness, passing a sign on the twisting road: "Smuggling and illegal immigration may be encountered in this area."

The smugglers dropped the family at a Food City supermarket in Nogales, Ariz. Luis watched his grandmother count out 75 pennies from her pocket, all they had left for food.

A year later, she is still counting her pennies. The family lives in a creaky single-wide trailer on the edge of Nogales, the rent partly covered by disability benefits Dominga received since her arthritic knee gave out.

Earning money at a car wash on North Grand Avenue, Luis regained weight eating fast-food burgers and pizza. He was baptized into a local Mormon church, where volunteers had provided food and clothing after the family's desert journey. Last month, he entered Nogales High School in Arizona. He has his high school identification card and birth certificate to identify him as a U.S. citizen.

Twice a week, he crosses the border to Mexico, clutching grocery bags filled with fresh meat and vegetables. Waiting for him on one such visit was Leyva, wearing a crumpled cap and a weary smile. Only a few days had passed since Luis last saw Leyva, but he looked even skinnier.
His step-grandfather still couldn't find steady work, even after passing his sixth-grade equivalency test, which he incorrectly believed would make him eligible for a job in a factory assembling goods for export into the U.S.

The American teenager and the Mexican peasant walked through downtown, up a steep dirt path to the hillside shack where Leyva lived. Leyva fired up the oven top, grilled the meat and stuffed it into a tortilla. He gave the first one to Luis and prepared another for him.

"No. Save the food for yourself," Luis remembers telling Leyva.

Luis and Leyva talked about school, and about Dominga and Amor, as the sun dipped over the shanties. After a while, they walked quietly down the hill and said their brief goodbyes at the border fence. Then Leyva turned and climbed back up the hillside, and Luis walked down North Grand Avenue into Arizona.

Read from from The Times series: Without a Country
richard.marosi@latimes.com

Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times

 

See the entire article at:
latimes.com/news/local/la-me-border-boy-20121021,0,4751820.story

Obama Work Permits Granted, Arizona Undocumented Immigrant is One of First

 

TUCSON, Ariz. - – One of the first undocumented immigrants in the country to get a work permit under president Obama's deferred action program lives right here in Arizona, in Tucson.

It's a controversial program -- allowing qualified persons to receive a two-year work permit that can be renewed without fear of deportation.

We met one of the first people to qualify. He came to the United States from Mexico when he was nine years old.

Carlos Martínez had an all-American childhood. High school sports star, on to the University of Arizona.

He got undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer engineering. But once the diplomas went up on the wall, Carlos slipped into the shadows, where's he's lived the last seven years.

"I worked in cleaning yards, landscaping… basically jobs they give to illegals that do not require show me your papers or your social number and all that."

"You have to be the most overqualified landscaper in Arizona. Nobody knows you are an engineer?" we asked.

"No when I am working out there they just think I am another illegal trying to make a living."

Then came the order from the Obama white house, giving people like Carlos an opportunity to get work permits. Carlos thanks the president.

"Oh completely grateful. Better late than never -- he is the only president who has given me the opportunity to work," says Carlos.

But work permits are a temporary fix. And Carlos will be watching November's election returns more closely than most.

If Barack Obama is reelected, Carlos stays and works in his field. If Mitt Romney wins, all bets are off.

Carlos will look for jobs as a computer software engineer.

He's still awaiting passage of the Dream Act. The Dream Act would provide a path to citizenship to 1.7 million young people brought to the U.S. illegally. But so far it has failed to pass in congress.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/09/21/arizona-man-one-first-to-get-obama-work-permit/#ixzz277fWHG00

 

Quick Start to Program Offering Immigrants a Reprieve

New York Times 
September 11, 2012
By JULIA PRESTON

One month after the Obama administration started a program to suspend deportations of young illegal immigrants, more than 72,000 of them have applied for the temporary reprieve, senior immigration officials said on Tuesday, and this week the first approvals have been granted.

The figures for applications received so far — the first results the administration has released since a federal agency began receiving the documents on Aug. 15 — show that large numbers of young immigrants are ready to take the risk of coming forward, administration officials and immigrant advocates said, and that the agency in charge has been able to manage the rush of paperwork.

The immigrants requesting two-year deportation deferrals do not reach the high estimates of 250,000 that officials had said they were prepared to handle in the first month of the program, which is President Obama’s most significant immigration initiative.

But at the current rate, at least 200,000 young immigrants could have applications in the pipeline by the time of the presidential election on Nov. 6, and many thousands will probably have received deferrals and the work permits that go along with them. Officials originally predicted that it could take several months for the immigration agency, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, to issue the first deferrals.

The intense activity around the program in immigrant communities, especially among Latinos, has already yielded some political benefits to Mr. Obama, with Democrats repeatedly highlighting the initiative during their convention last week, to cheers from the floor. Initiated by an executive action, the program grants deportation deferrals that must be renewed after two years, and it does not provide any legal immigration status.

Pressure is increasing on Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate, to clarify his position on the program. He has not said whether he would continue it if he is elected, although he has said he would prefer “a more permanent solution” for young illegal immigrants.

The surge of applicants has not been greater, lawyers and advocates said, because of difficulties many young immigrants have encountered in gathering the documents they need to meet the program’s requirements and in mustering the $465 application fee, a hefty sum for many. Since the program has no filing deadline, eligible young people are taking time to consult with their families, weighing the benefits for them against possible risks for parents and siblings here illegally who are not eligible.

“There has been huge interest in community programs where people can get information,” said Laura Lichter, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, who practices in Denver. “But these applications are not something you would be ready to go with in one day. They take a fair amount of work. And we have to be sure people understand the risks they are taking.”

To qualify, illegal immigrants must be under 31 years old and have come to the United States before they were 16. They must show that they have lived here continuously since June 15, 2007, and be currently in school or have earned a high school diploma or have been honorably discharged from the military. They must pass a background check to show they do not have any significant criminal record or pose a threat to national security.

The program posed a test for the immigration agency, known as U.S.C.I.S., which has not been known for brisk efficiency. According to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group, as many as 1.2 million illegal immigrants could be immediately eligible for the program.

Given only two months to prepare, Alejandro Mayorkas, the director of the agency, worked to rally its 18,000 employees, including some 11,000 federal workers, to rise to the task. The applications — sheaves of school transcripts, utility and other bills, rental contracts or other documents immigrants can find to track their daily lives over the past five years — have to be submitted by mail.

Operating in the bureaucratic equivalent of a blitz, the agency has been issuing receipts for applications within 48 hours after they were logged in, Mr. Mayorkas said. Fingerprints and photographs are taken for background checks, generally within three weeks after an application is received.

The first applicants gave their fingerprints last Thursday, Mr. Mayorkas said, and the checks were completed by Monday. The agency is equipped to perform the criminal checks, Department of Homeland Security officials said, because those are required for most visas the agency routinely issues.

Completed applications first reached the decision-making officers on Monday. By that afternoon the first few approvals were issued, Mr. Mayorkas said, with several dozen more on Tuesday. Some immigrants were notified immediately by text message.

“If somebody submits documents that show by the preponderance of the evidence that they meet the guidelines, we are poised to move the cases as quickly as possible,” Mr. Mayorkas said.

Mr. Mayorkas said he expected the first work permits, which are approved in a separate but parallel process, to be issued in coming weeks.

Administration officials have said the program will be paid for by fees, with no taxpayer money invested. California is leading in applications, not surprisingly, followed by Texas, New York, Florida and New Jersey. By far the largest number of applicants was born in Mexico. But officials said a surprisingly large number of applications came from South Koreans, a much smaller population of immigrants.

As the deferral program expands, resistance to it has grown among Republicans in Congress, who say it is undermining the administration’s broader enforcement against illegal immigration and making it difficult for immigration agents to do their jobs.

In a letter on Tuesday to John Morton, the director of the agency in charge of enforcement, Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama, wrote, “There is no question that the administration’s unilaterally decreed policy is contrary to codified federal law and places our law enforcement officers in an untenable position.”