Janet Napolitano claims that Barack Obama’s DREAM Act dictate is not amnesty

  Whenever the issue of comprehensive immigration reform or the DREAM Act comes up supporters of the legislation–be it John McCain, George W Bush, Marco Rubio, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Barack Obama, or Newt Gingrich–like to claim that while the legislation may provide a path towards citizenship it is not an amnesty bill.

  So when Barack Obama bypassed the Congress and implemented the DREAM Act through dictate the supporters naturally came out and declared this was not amnesty. Janet Napolitano was one of those people and here is what she had to say:

This grant of deferred action is not immunity, it is not amnesty,”  Napolitano said.  “It is an exercise of discretion so that these young  people are not in the removal system

Individuals who meet this criteria will not be placed in removal  [deportation] proceedings and will not be removed [deported] from the  United States

  According to Janet Napolitano a group of people who meet a certain criteria will not be subjected to facing prosecution or punishment for having not met the laws required to enter the United States and this is considered a deferred action and is not amnesty. I thought I would take a few minutes to look up the accepted definition of amnesty and here is what I found:

1.a general pardon for offenses, especially political offenses, against a government, often granted before any trial or conviction.

2.Law . an act of forgiveness for past offenses, especially to a class of persons as a whole.

3.a forgetting or overlooking of any past offense