"In a previous blog post, I explained how the president could issue EADs to the same unauthorized immigrants who would qualify for DAPA, even if they were not granted deferred action:

This matters because—completely separate from the issue of deferred action—it presents the president with an alternative means to achieve the same ends. He could, for example, promulgate a regulation allowing all aliens to apply for an EAD if they can demonstrate that they: 1) have not committed any serious crimes; 2) have been continuously residing in the country for at least 5 years; and 3) have an immediate relative (spouse or child) who is a U.S. citizen. After being granted an EAD, but without being granted deferred action, these unauthorized immigrants would still be deportable, but could legally work in the United States. That, it seems to me, would be clearly legal, although admittedly an undesirable result because people who could legally work in the country could still be deported. That would allow employers to threaten their unauthorized immigrant employees with deportation if they ever ask for a raise or complain about unpaid wages or unsafe working conditions (even more than they do now, that is, because immigrants would have even more at stake). However, on the other hand, under the Morton Memos, which set out the administration’s deportation priorities, those EAD-holders (who would necessarily already have clean criminal records, a lengthy period of residence in the United States, and U.S. citizen immediate relatives), would be so far down on the list of deportation priorities, that they’d be unlikely to be deported from the interior. This wouldn’t be the same as having an official grant of deferred action, but they could be reasonably certain that they would not be detained and deported. I think this is a less-likely scenario, but it is a legal one.

Since this was written, DHS has issued a more recent memorandum, known as the “Johnson Memo” which details its new immigration enforcement priorities and supersedes those listed in the Morton Memos. Those new priorities are updates and refinements of the ones described in the Morton Memos, and similar enough not to change the analysis. While unauthorized immigrants who qualify for an EAD in this scenario would technically still be deportable, anyone meeting the three listed requirements is also unlikely to be deported from the interior of the United States because they would not fall under the enforcement priorities outlined in the Johnson Memo. As evidence for this, consider that the number of unauthorized immigrants with clean criminal records who were deported from the interior of the United States in 2013 was only 17,000 out of 11 million, and we can reasonably expect this to be lower under the Johnson Memo and after the shift from DHS’s Secure Communities enforcement dragnet to the Priority Enforcement Program is complete.

This doesn’t offer as much certainty for the DAPA and expanded-DACA-eligible population as an affirmative application process for deferred action would, but DHS can take additional steps to mitigate this uncertainty. For example, whenever the government’s deportation machinery encounters an unauthorized immigrant who qualified for and has an EAD under the new regulation, DHS can decline to deport them based on its enforcement priorities—and instruct immigration agents that an EAD issuance should be considered strong evidence that the immigrant is not an enforcement priority—so that DHS can focus its resources on deporting criminals instead."
http://www.epi.org/blog/obama-immigr...ont-stop-them/