Surname 1 Surname 8 Student’s Name Course Name 25 February, 2013 American Immigration Policy and Legislation The United States Senate prepared a bill in the year 2007 meant to address the problem of illegal immigrants and those that were not documented (Kenny 92). The bill aimed at tightening border security and later opening a path for immigrants to acquire citizenship. Since then, immigration policy and legislation in the United States of America has risen, and many debates have been witnessed. Immigration is such a sensitive issue in the politics of the United States of America requiring proper legislation procedures to be formulated. History shows that most people living in America are descendants of immigrants or slaves who migrated to the country in the course of last 400 years. This excludes the Native Americans who are considered as original people who lived in the U.S. In former times, the government of U.S. allowed the immigrants to settle in an expanded territory. This was later changed by the outbreak of civil wars that required from each state to enact immigration laws. Most of the early initial immigration laws were introduced to control the composition of the general United States population. Several policies and laws of immigration to U.S. were passed by the Congress. Consequently, the concerns about border security increased, and immigration laws were further shifted to address the issue. This paper explores deeply the American legislation and policies of immigration. In particular, the introduction of reforms in immigration department by President Obama takes the center of the discussion with focus on the new bill yet to be presented to the Congress. Policy and Legislation of U.S. Immigration The White House currently has plans of implementing new immigration policies while considering the need to reinforce the existing immigration laws as proposed by the Republicans. The three major proposals circulating in the U.S. Congress now are based on border security, possible path for an immigrant to become a legal U.S. citizen, and special status of agricultural workers. President Obama together with Democrats and some Republicans in the Congress is currently working on an immigration bill incorporating all the three issues. The matter has caused debates among the Republicans and Democrats extending to the whole nation. The need to reinforce the existing laws and enact new ones was the main subject in these debates. As a result, the legislators formed a committee to review and suggest proper immigration laws. Possible Path to Citizenship for Unauthorized Workers Residing in the U.S. The government of the USA is reviewing the possibility to enact a new immigration law seeking to allow illegitimate immigrants currently staying in the country to become legitimate citizens. The bill gives a clear timeline of 8 years for an immigrant to become a United States citizen. The estimated eleven million immigrants are expected to receive ...

1. Surname 1
Surname 8
Student’s Name
Course Name
25 February, 2013
American Immigration Policy and Legislation
The United States Senate prepared a bill in the year 2007 meant
to address the problem of illegal immigrants and those that were
not documented (Kenny 92). The bill aimed at tightening border
security and later opening a path for immigrants to acquire
citizenship. Since then, immigration policy and legislation in
the United States of America has risen, and many debates have
been witnessed. Immigration is such a sensitive issue in the
politics of the United States of America requiring proper
legislation procedures to be formulated. History shows that
most people living in America are descendants of immigrants or
slaves who migrated to the country in the course of last 400
years. This excludes the Native Americans who are considered
as original people who lived in the U.S.
In former times, the government of U.S. allowed the immigrants
to settle in an expanded territory. This was later changed by the
outbreak of civil wars that required from each state to enact
immigration laws. Most of the early initial immigration laws
were introduced to control the composition of the general
United States population. Several policies and laws of
immigration to U.S. were passed by the Congress.
Consequently, the concerns about border security increased, and
immigration laws were further shifted to address the issue. This
paper explores deeply the American legislation and policies of

2. immigration. In particular, the introduction of reforms in
immigration department by President Obama takes the center of
the discussion with focus on the new bill yet to be presented to
the Congress.
Policy and Legislation of U.S. Immigration
The White House currently has plans of implementing new
immigration policies while considering the need to reinforce the
existing immigration laws as proposed by the Republicans. The
three major proposals circulating in the U.S. Congress now are
based on border security, possible path for an immigrant to
become a legal U.S. citizen, and special status of agricultural
workers. President Obama together with Democrats and some
Republicans in the Congress is currently working on an
immigration bill incorporating all the three issues. The matter
has caused debates among the Republicans and Democrats
extending to the whole nation. The need to reinforce the
existing laws and enact new ones was the main subject in these
debates. As a result, the legislators formed a committee to
review and suggest proper immigration laws.
Possible Path to Citizenship for Unauthorized Workers Residing
in the U.S.
The government of the USA is reviewing the possibility to enact
a new immigration law seeking to allow illegitimate immigrants
currently staying in the country to become legitimate citizens.
The bill gives a clear timeline of 8 years for an immigrant to
become a United States citizen. The estimated eleven million
immigrants are expected to receive visa for permanent
citizenship after much security scrutiny (Kenney 92). Each
immigrant will be subjected to security check for any criminal
record executed in the U.S. or in any other country, including
their mother country. They will also be required to submit their
biometric information. Those who have criminal record are
denied the opportunity to be permanent citizens. If the
immigrants have criminal records in another country, then they
will not be eligible either to enter the country or become
citizens.

3. Kenney explains that the bill further provides an open
citizenship for the immigrants facing deportation. They will be
allowed to become U.S. citizens if they gain knowledge of
English and the history of government of the United States. This
will make them eligible immigrants to be allowed a visa for
U.S. citizenship (90).
Several legislators expressed their opinion concerning the
matter. Many of such legislators support the bill to allow
immigrants acquire citizenship within 8 years. Bipartisan
senators agree with the bill’s plan for immigration legislation.
President Obama invoked not to introduce the bill as his own,
but as a joint legislation for all in the Congress. Obama
indicated that the Congress has to act within the time limit to
which he will insist on the bill as his own. Among the
supporters of the comprehensive immigration bill is the White
House spokesman Clark Stevens.
The proper path of immigration bill for immigrant’s citizenship
obtains the overwhelming support from certain interest groups
and personalities. However, some opposition is evident. For
example, a Republican senator of Florida Marco Rubio who was
involved in drafting legislation of immigration has discredited
the law. Senator Marco argues that the bill failed to address the
failures of the past legislation and instead repeated them. He
further indicates that the Republicans were not consulted in
enacting the law. The input of the Republicans was not included
according to Marco. Rubio disagrees with the proposal for
future path of immigrant’s citizenship as a plan that will break
the legal immigration systems in the future years. Contrary to
the stand of Senator Marco, Senator Noorani expresses
satisfaction with the proposal for citizenship of immigrants. He
explains that there was less attention directed to address future
immigration thenceforth, and thus it was the time to address
such discrepancies.

4. Another major point of disagreement among the legislators and
the President concerns the issues whether to strengthen and
enforce current immigration laws or enact new ones. The
senators argue that the government should enforce the
immigration laws in place before embarking on the path to
citizenship for immigrants (Kenney 91). They also argue that
the borders should be strengthened before enacting the
citizenship bill.
In addition, there were several interest groups involved in the
heated debate. The U.S. Latino activists invoked to support the
plan of President Obama, namely to open a path for immigrants’
citizenship. This position is in contrast with their initial
complaints that President Obama failed to implement the
promise given to the immigrants during his first term of
presidency. However, they accepted the plan to allow
undocumented immigrants to become citizens according to the
eight-year plan. Such acceptance resulted in the optimistic
attitude of the Latino activists to the implementation of the
corresponding plan.
Border Security
Issues of border security resulted in the enactment of many
immigration laws in the United States. Such considerations are
also the subjects of concern in the United States of America. In
the current situation, there is a heated debate between the
Democrats and Republicans regarding the best way of
improving or enforcing the current immigration laws aiming at
strengthening of border security (Huntington 7). Border security
is believed to be one sensitive issue that can cause a pause in
the ongoing immigration reforms (Bush, McLarty, and Edward
Alden 99). A group of senators who are considered to be
bipartisan proposed comprehensive reforms of immigrants’ laws
termed as “trigger mechanism”. In their proposal, the path to

5. becoming a citizen of the U.S. will be highly dependent on the
secure U.S. borders. This will be, however, implemented along
with the tougher border security to regulate illegal immigration
(Huntington 3). The move has not been welcomed by President
Obama and other Liberal leaders. However, it is clear that the
President and his team are championing this matter and are
obligated to ensure border security is increased as said by Jay
Carney, the White House Secretary.
There has been a disagreement between the Senate and White
House over immigration reforms, but the differences of trigger
remain the largest. The differences may eliminate the whole
issue of immigration reforms, as more attention is centered on
border security. Deeper review of both ideas of the two sides
clearly shows one common goal, namely that there is need for
the government to increase border security.
Some senators support the idea of increased border security
first, before opening a path to citizenship. They claim that
borders of the United States are not secure. The Senators were
not invoked to prove such claims. Senator O’Rebourke claims
that no one stated clear standards for increasing border security.
He adds that increasing military on the border will result in
more cases of death and a waste of money of the federal
government that could be spent for other purposes. He argues
further that increased military on the border will have serious
implications on the economy, as it will reduce the flow of trade
contacts.
The bipartisan senators together with other Republican senators
support the idea that the border control must be prioritized. The
current laws should be enforced before further opening up to a
clear path of citizenship. This was supported by other law
makers, as a drawback to the bill concerning American borders
was not a crime hiding zone. For example, they argue that there
has never been any reported case of terrorist attack on the

6. Mexican border. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano
supports the idea of deportation and disagreed with the border
security precondition expressed by the other Senators. He
argues that this is an excuse for not accepting the new
immigration reforms, and that the borders have never been
stronger.
Bush, McLarty, and Edward Alden report that the number of
agents who help in border patrol has increased overwhelmingly
in the past two decades. This was coupled with higher spending
by the federal government in enforcing the current immigration
laws. An argument is posed that several billions were spent on
border security in contrast with the cost of establishing a fence,
as a number of politicians are advocating for. For example,
building of a border fence in Texas will cost the federal
government $30 billion. This forced to champion the clear
reforms within the immigration sector to support the bid and
save a lot of U.S. government spending (99).
President Obama topped his agenda of the year 2013 by
immigration reforms expecting to have a new law addressing the
problem within 6 months of his second term. This was met with
mixed reactions, since some supported the move while others
were against it. Senator Jeff Sessions, for example, indicated
that the government will implement better work for enforcing
the move to a more effective lawful system of immigration. He
further added that this will be of much support and benefit to
American people who need a broad approach to the problem of
immigration.
Special Status for Temporary Agricultural Workers
The industrial employers of the U.S. argue that they need to
take into service foreign personnel to help them to execute low-
skilled jobs. On the other hand, some employers argue that
these available positions can be fulfilled by the U.S. citizens.
The current law allows foreign workers, commonly referred to

7. guest workers, to be welcomed in the country to undertake the
temporary jobs under two provisional working visas (Bush,
McLarty, and Edward Alden 97). These include the H-2A visa,
especially for guest workers in the field of agriculture, and H-
2B in other fields. These programs will provide better labor
services and protection to the workers in regard to having
legitimate workers. However, debates have risen over the
special status for temporary agricultural workers particularly on
the mode of stay and legitimacy.
Guest worker plans for the unskillful employees, especially in
the line of agriculture, is of heated debates. Critics have risen
over the current H-2A program for the special temporary
agricultural workers that awards temporary visas for recurring
agricultural work. They say that such an undertaking is too
costly for the farmers and also rigid to them. In addition, the
critics further add that H-2A program for guest agricultural
workers is satisfactorily unsuccessful to restrain illegal
immigration. Therefore, this led to the development of a new
proposal to review the H-2A program. An idea of bill that rises
to modify and expand the H-2A program was thus expressed by
the government. This bill popularly refers to “The Agricultural
Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security (Ag JOBS) Act.”
The bill seeks allowing undocumented agricultural workers to
apply for green cards under specified conditions. The bill was
introduced in the year 2003 but later faltered in the Congress.
Since then, several developments have been made towards
improving the welfare of agricultural workers and issuing for
them temporary visas that expire after a certain period.
The Senate Judiciary Committee made a move to address
immigration reforms including improving the status of farm
workers. They review the reforms of the immigration system,
which are to give an opportunity to 11 million immigrants to
become U.S. citizens including the agricultural workers
(Bowden 2).

8. President of the farm workers union Bruce Goldstein welcomes
the move. He further cites that a bout of 2 million agricultural
workers who are responsible for cultivating and harvesting the
food do not have authorized immigration status (Massey 3). The
president of the unions adds that the working conditions of the
farmers are hazardous, and they are paid low wages despite that
they supply food to each “table” in America. It is evident that
absence of migration status for farm workers caused them to
fear to claim against employment malpractices and seek proper
working conditions (Massey 7). This can only be addressed if
proper reforms are made to the H-2A program currently under
review by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The unions
champion the Congress to enact legislation in order to reform
the immigration laws as well as to allow the workers to be
citizens of the country. The Farm Workers Organization urges
House of Representatives to pass the legislation of the path to
citizenship.
The framework for immigration reforms proposed by the Obama
administration entails a pathway to citizenship and enforcement
of the provisions for the status of agricultural workers. The
committee of eight Senators, four Democrats and four
Republicans are expected to present the bill to the Congress for
debate this year. If the bill passes in the Congress, the
immigrants will then have an opportunity to become U.S.
citizens.
Conclusion
Comprehensive immigration reform that will involve
improvement in enforcement of the existing policies of
immigration and legal procedures is considered as the starting
point for reforms in the U.S. immigration procedures. The
introduction of a proper pathway for immigrants to become
citizens of the U.S. will be of higher economic benefit to the
nation and the immigrants. The 11 million undocumented
immigrants currently residing in the United States will get an

9. opportunity to become citizens legally. The challenge, however,
remains as there are different opinions between Republicans and
Democrats which may prevent the bill from becoming a law. In
order the bill becomes the law, it will be necessary to obtain its
mobilization by the Obama administration and acceptance by
the Republicans.
Works Cited
Bowden, Charles. “Exodus: Border-Crossers Forge a New
America”, Mother Jones and the Foundation for National
Progress. Mother Johns Mag. N. d. Web. 19 February 2013.
Bush, Jeb, Thomas F. McLarty, and Edward Alden. Independent
Task Force Report No. 63:U.S. Immigration Policy. New York:
Council on Foreign Relations, 2009. Print.
Huntington, Samuel P. Who Are We?: The Challenges to
America's National Identity. New York: Simon & Schuster,
2005. Print.
Kenney, Karen. Illegal Immigration. Edina, Minn: ABDO Pub.
Co, 2008. Print.
Massey, Douglas S, Jorge Durand, and Nolan J. Malone. Beyond
Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in the Area of
Economic Integration. New York: Russell Sage Foundation,
2002. Print.