Barack Obama urged to protect immigration in his remaining term

California, which had more than two million undocumented immigrants, the most in the country, became the battle ground for many state officials over immigration issues.

Washington, Nov 16 The Barack Obama administration should protect those "dreamers", who were brought to the US illegally but later granted legal temporary status to stay, a US Congresswoman has said.

The Obama administration in the remaining term should take legal action to prevent those who enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of American and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) programmes from being deported, Xinhua news agency quoted Judy Chu, the first Chinese American Congresswoman, as saying.

Chu, who was elected as the US Representative for California's 27th Congressional district in 2009 and retained her seat in the election early this month, served on the House Judiciary Committee.

People who applied for DACA or DAPA provided "extensive" sensitive information such as finger prints and relatives' home addresses to the government knowing that it will not be used against them, the Democratic congresswoman said.

California, which had more than two million undocumented immigrants, the most in the country, became the battle ground for many state officials over immigration issues.

Data estimated that as of 2016 about 1,932,000 people in the US are eligible for the DACA programme, and about 30 per cent of them lived in California.

The Los Angeles Police Department pledged on Monday that it would not participate in deporting undocumented immigrants, nor would it honour government requests to help deport people.

IANS