As the immigration reform debate continues, one of the main sticking points is whether any proposed legislation will include a path to a green card and U.S.citizenship. The Senate version of a comprehensive immigration reform bill does include an eventual path to a green card and citizenship.
As the GOP controlled House of Representatives debates their own bill, they are taking more of a piece meal approach rather than a comprehensive approach. As immigration advocates lobby to have the House draft acceptable legislation, signs are that the GOP is warming up to introducing an immigration reform bill of their own, but one still void of an automatic path to green card and citizenship. The GOP views any automatic path to legalization no matter how long it takes as an amnesty which they will not allow.
The bad news is that the Pew Research Center has just issued a report on immigration detailing that the undocument immigrant population in the United States has increased. Anti-immigrant lobbyist will surely use this data to argue that the rise in the illegal immigration population is a result of more people coming here to work, thus shrinking the job pool for Americans, and that the increase in illegal population shows that our borders are not secure.
It remains to be seen whether the GOP can be convinced that immigration reform is good for America and good for them as well.
CLICK HERE for a Wall Street Journal article on this subject.
