Here is the most up-to-date information on proposed immigration reform.
There is most definitely a sense of urgency.
The Senate should see a new bill – several hundred pages long no doubt – within a month. If nothing is introduced by then, the House of Representatives will try to move, based on perceptions of public demand.
Regarding the House, it is still unclear if different constituent groups will all be able to accept the idea of immigration reform.
The key is a plan that will not be attacked by those not traditionally in favor of what has been deemed “amnesty.”
Also, it is very possible that both the Senate and House will introduce their own bills.
Perhaps the most difficult issue that politicians have to wrestle with is the millions of paperless immigrants in the United States and dealing with a potential torrent of applications, despite the potential there for our government to earn billions in filing fees.
Then, obviously, we have the folks who have been waiting already, some of whom are in categories backed up to the 1980s and 1990s. But that issue can be fixed by expanding the numbers of visas available.
Our government knows that something has to be done.
We know the President has weighed in with his own interest to move quickly toward reform, but only after he has overseen deportations set to hit a total of 2 million by 2014.
I have often quoted former Speaker Gingrich who has said: “we are not going to deport 11 million people.”