Fourth, the OLC claims that past presidents have taken similar actions, yet it fundamentally misrepresents their legal basis. The primary example is George H.W. Bush ’s 1990 Family Fairness Policy (FFP), which affected an estimated 1.5 million children and spouses of those granted amnesty by the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act.
The FFP, however, was consonant with existing statutes. The FFP granted not deferred deportation, but “voluntary departure” for up to one year. Voluntary departure allows deportable individuals to voluntarily depart the country, on their own dime, in lieu of being forcibly removed. Their status as “deportable” individuals never changes.
The FFP was grounded in the then-existing voluntary-departure statute, which stated, “The Attorney General may, in his discretion, permit any alien under deportation proceedings . . . to depart voluntarily from the United States at his own expense in lieu of deportation.” The FFP didn’t contradict existing law or attempt to recategorize deportable aliens.
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