The big news today is the announcement that the Obama administration plans to stop deporting many young illegal immigrants, basically implementing the DREAM Act by executive order.

As we’ve noted previously, Mitt Romney’s immigration policy is being set by one of the most extreme right wing anti-immigrant ideologues in America, Kris Kobach. With this move, President Obama is offering a clear choice between the dead-end far right policies of Romney and a saner immigration stance for the United States.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration will stop deporting and begin granting work permits to younger illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and have since led law-abiding lives. The election-year initiative addresses a top priority of an influential Latino electorate that has been vocal in its opposition to administration deportation policies.

The policy change, announced Friday by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, will affect as many as 800,000 immigrants who have lived in fear of deportation. It also bypasses Congress and partially achieves the goals of the so-called DREAM Act, a long-sought but never enacted plan to establish a path toward citizenship for young people who came to the United States illegally but who have attended college or served in the military.

The extraordinary step comes one week before President Barack Obama plans to address the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials’ annual conference in Orlando, Fla. Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney is scheduled to speak to the group on Thursday.

Right wing bloggers are raving like madmen, of course, led by the dumbest man on the Internet, Jim Hoft, in a post with the most idiotically over-the-top headline he’s cranked out in months: Gangster-in Chief Obama Bypasses Congress - Grants Immunity to Illegal Alien Children | the Gateway Pundit.