Live video: Obama speaks on blocking deportations of young immigrants

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News broke this morning that the Obama administration would block deportations of thousands of young undocumented immigrants that had moved to the United States as children. The decision came after years of tense relations between the president and Latinos, one of his more important constituencies.

Secretary of State Janet Napolitano outlined the criteria in a press release this morning. Obama was scheduled to speak in the Rose Garden on the announcement at 1:15 but that has been pushed back. We’ll have live video of that here once he begins.

Peter Wallsten points out that the issue has been long-simmering among immigration reform activists:

“Advocates have spent months urging the president to take executive action to spare many young illegal immigrants from deportation, and until now Obama has insisted that he did not have the authority to do so.”

After the DREAM Act failed in Congress, both Democrats and Republicans have been looking for ways to put their mark on the immigration issue.

Many had been growing increasingly frustrated with the Obama administration’s policies on immigration, especially for those who had immigrated to the country as young children.

The Post’s Eli Saslow covered one such case of a young woman named Heydi Mejia in Virginia, who was scheduled to be deported shortly after her high-school graduation. She was granted a reprieve this week.

More on this story from PostPolitics:

The Fix: Obama stirs the pot

Meyerson: Good policy, great politics

Rubin: Change the law, don’t ignore it

The Big Story: Immigration in the U.S.

Readers react to Obama’s immigration plan