(Source: Elise Foley, HuffingtonPost.com)

The Obama administration responded to years of pressure from immigrants rights groups on Friday with an announcement that it will stop deportations and begin granting work permits for some Dream Act-eligible students.

“They pledge allegiance to our flag. They are Americans in their hearts, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper,” President Barack Obama said of those young people in a press conference announcing the policy change.

Some 800,000 people are expected to come forward to receive deferred action from deportation, as first reported by the Associated Press on Friday morning. The policy change will apply to young undocumented immigrants who entered the United States as children, along the same lines as the Dream Act, a decade-old bill that passed in the House of Representatives but failed in the Senate in 2010.
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