By Steven T. Dennis and JM Rieger

President Barack Obama outlined executive actions to fix existing immigration laws Thursday night during a nearly 15-minute speech from the East Room of the White House. The executive actions themselves are numerous and sweeping, and in many ways go far beyond the more than 4 million people who officially will be eligible for work permits and protected from deportation. Obama’s administration will order immigration agents to prioritize deportations of criminals and recent arrivals — and let people who are not on that priority list go free. Officials acknowledged though that Illegal immigrants without records would be less likely to encounter immigration enforcement.