Obama's new immigration policy to ease family separation time

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Podcasts Take Two

Jan 3, 2013

Listen • 6:41

Obama's new immigration policy to ease family separation time

The Obama administration made a big change to its immigration policy yesterday. A new rule issued by the Department of Homeland Security aims to reduce the time immigrants are separated from their American families while applying for residency.

The U.S. Treasury said Friday that it took in a rare surplus of $113 billion in April, the largest in five years. Steady economic growth and higher tax rates have boosted the government's tax revenue, keeping this year's annual budget deficit on pace to be the smallest since 2008. (Photo: U.S. President Barack Obama makes a statement in the White House Briefing Room following passage by the House of tax legislation on January 1, 2013 in Washington, D.C. which averted the 'fiscal cliff.')

The Obama administration made a big change to its immigration policy yesterday. A new rule issued by the Department of Homeland Security aims to reduce the time immigrants are separated from their American families while applying for residency.

The Obama administration made a big change to its immigration policy yesterday. A new rule issued by the Department of Homeland Security aims to reduce the time immigrants are separated from their American families while applying for residency.

It could affect 1 million of the estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally.

Alvaro Huerta, an attorney with the National Immigration Law Center in L.A. joins the show to fill us in on the new policy.