Immigration’s process has been so well. According to the Washington Post, President Barack Obama’s political support group, Organizing for Action is stepping up its immigration efforts as the Senate holds hearings on overhauling the nation’s broken immigration system. OFA will hold an Immigration, Day of Action on May 2 that will include rallies around the country and visits to members of Congress. The group is organizing nearly 250 phone banks, on Tuesday, to appeal for supporters to get involved. The goal is to mobilize OFA’s massive voter database, the same one that helped elect Obama twice, to support one of the President’s top legislative priorities. Obama is backing a draft bill written by bipartisan Senators that would secure the border and provide a path to citizenship for some of the 11 million immigrants in the country who are undocumented.
As reported in USA TODAY, the President will be hosting a dinner for the 20 women in the Senate. This group meets periodically but when the President heard that they were getting together at Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s house he invited them to the White House instead. The President has met with other groups from Congress but this will be the first time for this group. They are expected to discuss a budget deal and a comprehensive immigration bill. Sen. Klobuchar hoped that the recent attack in Boston wouldn’t be used as an excuse to delay work on an immigration bill.
Fox News reported that Sen Marco Rubio believes that immigration is important to our nation and that Americans have been generous in welcoming them. But he believes that the current immigration system is broken resulting in 11 million undocumented immigrants He believes that Republicans should take the lead in fixing the system. His plan would allow them to become permanent resident after a period of 10 years. They would have to submit biometric data to pass multiple national security and background checks , pay $2,000 in fines, pay taxes, and learn civics and English. Under his plan they would not be eligible for any federal benefits. We would also have to improve border security to prevent this situation from reoccurring. We would also have to put in place systems to identify people who overstay their visas and prevent them from being hired.
The World Journal advises those immigrants who have become citizens to be sure to have their close relatives apply for green cards as soon as possible. The Boston bombing may influence Congress it make it more difficult for new immigrants to enter the country. If the law changes to a lottery, it may be more difficult for them to apply and only those who are highly educated may be able to obtain H1-B visas.
