Flow chart: Who qualifies for Obama’s immigration offer?

Reported By Emily Badger and Kennedy Elliott, The Washington Post, 11/22/14

You can read a Spanish-language version of this post and graphic here.

The deportation reprieves that President Obama extended to millions of immigrants this week are relatively arbitrary. The president's executive action would delay deportation for the undocumented mother of a child born in the U.S. on Thursday — but not an undocumented mother who gave birth here one day later. Similarly, the president has offered deferrals to children brought to this country by their parents before their 16th birthday — but not a few weeks after.

Such deadlines serve a purpose: They're meant to discourage new immigrants from coming in the future, or to dissuade women already here from giving birth with the goal of securing deferrals. But they also show that the president's action falls far short of a comprehensive solution. It offers, instead, a fragmented answer that will leave many immigrants disappointed.

This is one way to make sense of who could benefit, and who will not:

To qualify, immigrants must not meet any of the criminal criteria DHS has outlined as priorities for deportation.

Note: An earlier version of this chart asked "were you brought here by your parents?" A couple of readers have pointed out that you may also have been brought here as a child, under DACA, by other relatives for example. We've updated the flow chart to ask more broadly, "were you brought here as a child?" Many thanks to our readers.

Here are the highlights from President Obama's speech on immigration, in which he outlined his executive action to shield 4 million illegal immigrants from deportation. (Ashleigh Joplin/The Washington Post)

Emily Badger is a reporter for Wonkblog covering urban policy. She was previously a staff writer at The Atlantic Cities.