On November 21, President Obama delivered an historic executive order to protect 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation. “Today,” he stated, “our immigration system is broken, and everybody knows it.” Citing the ongoing political deadlock in Congress as a major barrier to the implementation of meaningful immigration reform, the president announced a set of actions designed to grant temporary relief from deportation to undocumented parents of US-born children, high-skilled immigrant workers and graduate students, and others.

Several RSF authors and immigration experts participated in a recent roundtable discussion on The Conversation about the executive order, which has drawn fire from Republican leaders. Katharine Donato, co-author of the forthcoming RSF publication Gender and International Migration (2015), applauded the president for taking “action that many families have desperately needed.” She continued, “Most of us don’t understand how damaging the fear of deportation is. But for the last two decades, many immigrant parents—with children who are US citizens—have lived with this very real fear every day.”

John Logan, co-editor of the RSF book Diversity and Disparities (2014), also weighed in on the president’s actions, remarking, “I see this as a positive, limited step that will improve living conditions in many communities around the country…However, it isn’t opening the border to new immigrants, and it’s only a temporary measure.”

Similarly, Jennifer Lee, co-author of the 2011 RSF book The Diversity Paradox and co-author of the forthcoming RSF book The Model Minority? (2015) praised the benefits that the executive order would deliver to Latinos and Asian Americans, but also mentioned some of the strategy’s shortcomings, pointing out, “The President’s plan does not address visa backlogs, which is a pressing issue for Asian Americans; there are currently 1.8 million people in Asian countries who have been waiting for decades for a family sponsored visa.”

Click here to read all the responses to Obama’s executive order on The Conversation.