LinkTen

With immigration reform being a hot topic at the moment, what's everyone's views on this? Letting illegal immigrants earn citizenship, giving high skilled immigrants and students a green card, changes to the guest worker program etc.

Speedwell

I think the existing system punishes legitimate immigration. The vast majority of illegal immigrants I know are law-abiding (other than their immigration status), self-supporting (to the best of their ability given that they can't legally work), English-speaking (functionally), and they genuinely want to be Americans. I do know a few who are in trouble with the law, or chronic welfare abusers, or refuse to speak English or think of themselves as anything but their legal nationality. Those are problems in isolation (crime, laziness, taking advantage), not problems that can be uniquely identified as belonging to the illegal immigrant population. My sister-in-law came over as a baby smuggled from Mexico. My father was a World Council of Churches sponsored refugee from the Hungarian Revolution. My mother's father and mother traveled with everything they owned in suitcases from Italy and Russia. The system worked and can still work. Changes to the existing restrictions may result in a certain number of abuses and a certain burden to the economy, but we in the US can no longer pretend that we don't live in the wider world. On the whole I think that the net result of immigration reforms in the direction of openness will be positive.

LinkTen

Interesting view, thanks for sharing.

I'm not up-to-scratch with how immigration reform/legislation/bills would work, but it looks like many people see Barrack Obama's speech and efforts of immigration reform a lost cause, as I believe the republicans and others have to agree to pass any bills, and they and Barrack Obama do not agree, so it'll end up in limbo.

It seems the only thing they do agree on is highly skilled immigration, but it seems Obama is using that as his 'bargaining chip' to allow citizenship to be earned for illegal immigrants, and trying to pass it as one big bill. No highly skilled immigrants unless a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

It'll be interesting to see if/what Obama proposes on 12th Feb.

sir_eccles

It's a difficult topic.

You missed off LGBT immigration rights, and so might any legislator hoping to get anything passed (unfortunately).

Part of the problem with the discussion is separating the actual immigration issues from the unfounded fears of the moral white majority who think they are going to be persecuted as the new minority. Another term for this group is old white racists who don't realize that "brown people" from the south is a small part of illegal immigration and don't realize those nice white people serving them a drink with an Irish accent are probably illegal too.

LinkTen

You mean that lovely Irish man serving me a drink in San Diego last year could have been illegal? Surely not the British man serving the food?



Apologies for leaving off LGBT immigration. I'm sure I've missed a few other likely proposed immigration routes as well.

LinkTen

President Obama will start his push for immigration reform this week, with an announcement on Tuesday in Vegas apparently.

HarryTheSpider

In Vegas? Really? I though that, unless your name was 'Harry', what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas...

LinkTen

Let's hope this one manages to escape the boundaries of Vegas without the need to see any royal bits and bobs.

HarryTheSpider

Especially the bobs...!

Bob

who called?

sir_eccles

http://www.azcentral.com/ic/pdf/0128...df?sf9008954=1

5 pages of words but I'm still not sure what their plan actually is beyond making illegal immigrants wait until everyone else has their greencards and saying "tough but fair" several times.

RICH

I think that immigration POLICY for the future is what is being addressed, eg weighting more in favour of work based immigration than family based as is it is now. I do not imagine for a second, even if they agree on policy change, that it will become any easier or cheaper to immigrate, but at best more people might become eligible.

The issue of what to do about "illegals" already here is somewhat separate, i feel.

When it comes to getting something voted through house/senate, the problem is, the people it affects don't have a vote, so politicians don't even have to pretend to care what they think. The only reason it is a hot topic is, frankly, racial. Latinos (legal ones) are now a big/loud enough voting bloc, and Washington sees them as defacto supporters of the repressed illegals who need to be thrown a bone.

Steve_

The bill proposed yesterday appears to simply be a consolidation of every half-baked idea that has been floating around Congress for the past ten years, here are the highlights:

- full labour certification for H-1B "to stop foreign workers undercutting Americans", blah blah;
- an "enhanced" E-verify system, which I assume means Schumer's utterly bonkers biometric social security card system;
- reallocation of per country immigrant visa numbers to make it fairer (by screwing over some nationalities to favour others);
- reform of family-based immigation, wasn't quite following that one but seeing as McCain helped write it, I assume it means scrapping third and fourth preference and assigning them to employment-based, but there was some guff about "reunifying" families, which I assume means deported people will be able to get waivers even though they're banned from entry;
- scrapping the diversity lottery;
- assigning more immigrant visas to people with STEM qualifications who have job offers, so I assume that means EB-3 Skilled Worker will have some subcategory;
- "guest worker program" which sounded word-for-word like the current H-2A system, no clue what that was about really, some sort of minor reform of H-2A at the end of the day. H-2A already allows agricultural workers to come in and there is no quota. Maybe they're talking about scrapping the visa and granting it at the POE, but I think it is just a limited expansion to some other types of work;
- some sort of way of people in the US illegally being able to stay, this seems to be the toughest bit of it, people who have been granted deferred action who pay all their taxes, pass an English language test etc. get LPR status and then they can get citizenship.

The last bit is the most contentious, I have a feeling it won't pass the House if it includes citizenship, could be some form of conditional LPR status, i.e. you're allowed to stay but the condition will be you can't get citizenship unless you get a waiver and go through the legal route everyone else goes through (which means they won't be able to get it in many cases which is why they entered illegally to begin with).

More info from Obama possibly in half an hour, but I suspect that speech will be style rather than substance.

If you're in the US illegally this might be a big deal for you but if you want to come to the US legally you could be arguably worse off, or only slightly better off.

Oh yeah and if you work in the "building fences, digging trenches" industry have I got good news for you...

Steve_

If they actually force everyone in the US illegally to wait until EVERYONE currently in the system gets their green card, then it will be decades before any are granted, so that means things like third and fourth preference family-based immigration are on the chopping block.

sir_eccles

There was a thing on NPR yesterday about H2A. Basically yes it should be the perfect visa for all the farmers to employ as many seasonal workers as they need. Except no one uses it because it is a mess of paperwork, costs, overheads, fees, lawyers, red tape....

Unless it's an olive branch to those that oppose an amnesty. Look see they have to wait until everyone else gets theirs which as you say translates as effectively never.