House Speaker John. M. Boehner told to USA Today that reforms on the immigration laws will be upmost priority in the next session of congress. He told that immigration is next on agenda once the senate passes a bipartisan budget deal for the next two years.
In June 2013, Senate passed and proposed the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill to GOP House. However Boehner never brought the bill in house for vote. Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill was constructed by Gang of Eight, a bipartisan committee consists of four Republicans and four Democrats members. It addresses many key issues like Border Security measures, Merit based Visa System and Path for Citizenship.
One of the main controversial issues is path to citizenship. Comprehensive Bill proposes 13 years of path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants to be a n American citizenship and to appear for Immigration Medical Exam. Conservative Republicans in House opposed this bill and advised to draft a few small bills containing separate issues instead of one comprehensive bill. Few weeks back, Mr. Barak Obama, President of United States also supported this Piecemeal Approach. Last week, Vice President Joe Biden also confirmed that immigration reform is going to happen. It just need some time.
According to surveys, there are approximately 11.5 million undocumented immigrants are residing in United States, waiting for congress to pass reform bill. Thousands of immigrants and activists protested in many areas of United States. Many immigration lawyers and civil rights leaders have fasted in FastforFamilies tent, created outside Capitol Building, Washington D.C. in support of immigration reform bill.
Despite of all this pressure created by people, House Republicans showed a little interest to carry out on this issue. Alex Nowrasteh of the libertarian Cato Institute said the argument that Congress can’t take on immigration in an election year ignores history.“The last three big immigration reforms that have happened have happened during election years, 1986, 1990 and 1996,” Nowrasteh said.
Sources said that many house republicans are already drafting immigration bills in pieces. Reps. David Valadao (R-California) and Jeff Denham (R-California) have pressed Republicans to sign onto a letter they hope to present to Boehner in January to support action on immigration legislation But how much support they will get, let time do its job.
easyIME.com is a free service, which streamlines the immigration medical process for green card aspirants by helping them locate the right USCIS Physician and schedule their Green Card Medical Exam online. Green card aspirants can also find immigration lawyers near their zip code through this service.
