President Obama has issued an executive order concerning the deportation of undocumented immigrants.

While the exact details are yet to be made public, some four to five million workers without papers will be protected from deportation for three years. At the same time, the border will be militarised even further, and deportations of those six to seven million not covered by the order will be ramped up.

Under the plan, which will not go into effect for another six months, undocumented parents of US citizens will be allowed to remain temporarily and receive work permits if they have lived here for at least five years and pass a background check.

Obama promises to abolish the notorious Secure Communities program, which has resulted in an unprecedented number of deportations, earning the president the moniker of “deporter in chief”. In its place will be a new program targeting felons. Given the vast industrial-prison complex in the US, with many convicted of felonies such as possession of small amounts of marijuana, it is unclear how this will play out.

Another provision will allow more immigrants with high tech skills to get work permits. Conspicuously left out are agricultural workers. In California, half of agricultural workers are undocumented.

Immigration activists have welcomed the positive aspects of the executive order, while recognising its limitations. They plan to fight to make permanent those positive aspects, extend them to the remaining seven to eight million and overhaul the whole immigration system.

Two of these activists, Maru Mora Villapando, and her daughter Josefina Mora (born in the US), recently spoke out.

Maru said, “Well, under this plan, I only get to be here for three years without being deported, and I can apply for a work permit. But that doesn’t put me on the path to legal permanent residence and then the path to citizenship.

“This is just temporary relief … not really a change in my immigrant status….

“So, what we are going to do is to continue fighting, not only to keep what we have right now – which is very little, but it’s a step – but also to expand it.”

Josefina added, “[Obama] said he is going to ramp up more enforcement for those who do not qualify for this. So that puts many in even more danger than before.”

The US immigration system is racist and makes it very difficult for non-whites to become citizens. There is a stingy quota system for how many people, by country, can obtain citizenship legally. It is conservatively estimated that for a Mexican to be granted citizenship through the legal process would take 10 years.

It should be noted that the “free trade” agreement with Mexico, while allowing capital and goods to go more freely across the border, to the great detriment of Mexican peasants and workers, blocks one commodity at the border: labour power.

The positive aspects of Obama’s order come in the context of a mass movement for immigrant rights that was launched in 2006.

That movement was sparked by a bill in Congress that was a gross attack on the undocumented and even made it illegal for citizens to give any type of aid to them.

There were huge marches in many cities against this bill in 2006, the largest being in Los Angeles, which I attended. These were followed up by big mobilisations on May Day.

The onerous bill was withdrawn as a result. While there haven’t been mobilisations that large in recent years, important actions have occurred. We have seen undocumented youth rally with T-shirts loudly proclaiming “I am undocumented” in open defiance.

Obama himself has been dogged by demonstrations demanding he stop the mass deportations that have occurred under his administration.

His executive order will put wind in the sails of activists, even though, as they admit, there is “a long way to go”.