Speech #1140002360

The persons evacuated were chosen because they had children who were U.S. citizens or because they provided protection to U.S. citizens during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. In 2000. Congress enacted a private immigration law to permit those who had not already been permanent residents by other means to obtain permanent residence. In 1992. President George Herbert Walker Bush also extended a DED. deferred enforced departure. to approximately 200.000 Salvadorans who fled civil war and previously had been protected from removal pursuant to a grant of temporary protected status. or TPS. President Bill Clinton later provided DED to Haitians in 1997. and President George Walker Bush extended DED to Liberians in 2007. Finally. again. this administration has extended deferred action to broad categories of people on two prior occasions. First. in 2009. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services created a process in which surviving spouses of deceased U.S. citizens and the qualifying children of such spouses could apply for deferred action. The process was created because it was the position of the Department of Homeland Security at the time that no immigration relief was available under the law to protect surviving members from removal and that action was needed to address the humanitarian concerns.