Irked progressives break Obama embargo

An immigrants rights group has leaked embargoed White House talking points on the president’s coming executive order on immigration in advance of his Thursday night announcement.

An account on Scribd, a document-sharing service, attributed to the National Immigrant Youth Alliance posted the talking points. Featuring a White House logo, they are labeled “Embargoed Until 6:00PM.”

“Ideally we would have respected an embargo, but after 2 million deportations the President has lost a tad bit of respect from our organization. We don’t care to play on their terms,” reads the description associated with the document.

{mosads}”No anticipated language on individuals who have been deported, or who were forced to leave due to attrition style policies,” it adds.

Immigration activists have long complained that the Obama White House has continued to deport immigrants while saying it wants immigration reform.

The group posted the document to its official Facebook page; otherwise it has a limited online presence. It has not tweeted since August and its website appears to be down. A call to the number affiliated with its domain name was not answered.

The document includes defenses of Obama’s order and provides information on how the order will be limited in scope. It also mentions that recently arrived illegal immigrants will become a priority for deportation.

The group has a reputation for using aggressive tactics.

Individuals affiliated with the group crossed over to Mexico and then reentered the United States through a border crossing in 2013 — while declaring their status as unauthorized immigrants — to protest deportations under the Obama administration.

The same year, Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) — who is one of the most outspoken pro-reform members of Congress — said he would no longer work with the group. 

The declaration from the congressman came after the group staged a sit-in at his office aimed at freeing some of the protesters who had been detained about reentering the United States during the earlier action. Protestors also angered Gutiérrez’s office by recording a meeting between the congressman and parents of detainees.

At the time, one of the leaders of the group told The Huffington Post that it had not had a working relationship with the congressman’s office in years.

Obama will speak about the executive order in a national address at 8 p.m. and follow up with a speech Friday at a high school in Las Vegas.