News Archive

Lisa Koop, ’04, associate legal director at the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) in Chicago, was quoted in a story published December 5 in the New York Times regarding the law suit against President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration. On November 20, President Obama offered three-year deportation reprieves and work permits to as many as five million illegal immigrants.

Those opposed to the president’s action contend that he has overstepped his authority and failed to enforce immigration laws. The lawsuit claims that the deportation protections the president offered to children beginning in 2012 have created a costly uptick in illegal border crossings.

Koop said in the story that President Obama’s “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” isn’t the reason for the increase in children crossing the border into the United States. NIJC interviewed nearly 4,000 children who crossed the border, and the number of children who had heard of the deferral program was in the single digits.

“What we heard time and again,” Koop told the newspaper, “was that violence in Central America and the need for safe haven was what prompted these children to undertake the journey north.”