WASH­ING­TON-Thou­sands of il­le­gal Caribbean im­mi­grants stand to ben­e­fit from a new im­mi­gra­tion pro­gramme that will al­low them to avoid de­por­ta­tion and ob­tain work per­mits in the US. The De­part­ment of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty (DHS) an­nounced de­tails of doc­u­ments that il­le­gal im­mi­grants would need to prove that they are el­i­gi­ble for the Oba­ma ad­min­is­tra­tion's De­ferred Ac­tion for Child­hood Ar­rivals.

The an­nounce­ment came a day be­fore US Cit­i­zen­ship and Im­mi­gra­tion Ser­vices be­gan ac­cept­ing ap­pli­ca­tions for the pro­gramme and sparked a rush to or­gan­ise pa­per­work by those ea­ger to par­tic­i­pate. The ad­min­is­tra­tion's plan is to stop de­port­ing many il­le­gal im­mi­grants who were brought to the US as chil­dren. To be el­i­gi­ble, im­mi­grants must prove they ar­rived in the Unit­ed States be­fore they turned 16, are 30 or younger, have been liv­ing in the US for at least five years and are in school or grad­u­at­ed or served in the mil­i­tary. They al­so can­not have been con­vict­ed of cer­tain crimes or oth­er­wise pose a safe­ty threat.

Ac­cord­ing to the guide­lines an­nounced last Tues­day, proof of iden­ti­ty and el­i­gi­bil­i­ty could in­clude a pass­port or birth cer­tifi­cate, school tran­scripts, med­ical and fi­nan­cial records and mil­i­tary ser­vice records. The DHS said in some in­stances, mul­ti­ple sworn af­fi­davits, signed by a third par­ty un­der penal­ty of per­jury, could al­so be used. Any­one found to have com­mit­ted fraud will be re­ferred to fed­er­al im­mi­gra­tion agents, the de­part­ment said.

Ale­jan­dro May­orkas, di­rec­tor of US Cit­i­zen­ship and Im­mi­gra­tion Ser­vices, stressed that be­ing ap­proved to avoid de­por­ta­tion "does not pro­vide law­ful sta­tus or a path to cit­i­zen­ship." The pa­per­work for the pro­gramme can be down­loaded from the Im­mi­gra­tion Ser­vices web­site. Ap­pli­cants must pay a $465 fee and pro­vide proof of iden­ti­ty and el­i­gi­bil­i­ty.

A de­ci­sion on each ap­pli­ca­tion could take sev­er­al months, and im­mi­grants have been warned not to leave the coun­try while their ap­pli­ca­tion is pend­ing. If they are al­lowed to stay in the Unit­ed States and want to trav­el in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, they will need to ap­ply for per­mis­sion to come back in­to the coun­try, a re­quest that would cost $360 more. Ad­vo­ca­cy groups across the Unit­ed States are plan­ning events start­ing this week to help im­mi­grants fill out their ap­pli­ca­tions and get all their pa­per­work in or­der.

The doc­u­ment, ob­tained by The As­so­ci­at­ed Press, es­ti­mat­ed that the pro­gramme could cost be­tween $467.7 mil­lion and $585.4 mil­lion. The de­part­ment an­tic­i­pat­ed col­lect­ing about $484.2 mil­lion in fees. Hun­dreds of thou­sands of il­le­gal im­mi­grants could un­ques­tion­ably ben­e­fit from the pro­gramme, which Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma an­nounced in June. The pro­gramme is be­gin­ning just months be­fore what promis­es to be a tight con­test for the White House in which the His­pan­ic vote may play an im­por­tant role.