KEY ELEMENTS INCLUDED IN EACH OF THE IMMIGRATION PLANS
SENATE
OBAMA
PATH TO
CITIZENSHIP
• Create a path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already in the country, but not until increased border security measures are completed.
• Create a commission of lawmakers and border-state community leaders to make a recommendation about when security measures are completed.
• While security measures are under way, illegal immigrants can register, pass background checks and pay fines and back taxes to earn "probationary legal status."
• Once security measures are in place, immigrants on "probationary legal status" could apply for permanent residency behind other immigrants already in the system after they prove their employment history and learn English and civics.
• Create a path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, with "provisional legal status" and a green card as intermediary steps, regardless of whether border security measures are completed.
• Illegal immigrants can earn "provisional legal status" by registering, passing background checks and paying fees and penalties.
• Immigrants on "provisional legal status" could get in line for permanent residency behind other immigrants already in the system.
• Five years after receiving permanent residency, immigrants can apply for citizenship.
BORDER
SECURITY
• Add unmanned drones, surveillance equipment and more agents at and between ports of entry.
• Create an entry-exit system to track whether people in the U.S. on temporary visas have left as required.
• Improve infrastructure at ports of entry and use public-private partnerships to boost investment in technology for foreign visitor processing.
• Create new criminal penalties for those who smuggle people, drugs, weapons or money across the border and crack down on passport and visa fraud.
• Deport convicted criminals at the end of their prison sentences and streamline the process for removing those who overstay their visas or pose a national security threat.
YOUNG
IMMIGRANTS
• People brought to the U.S. as children would have a quicker path to citizenship.
• People brought to the U.S. as children would have same path to citizenship, but could expedite that path by attending college or serving for two years in the military.
LEGAL
IMMIGRATION
• Reduce backlogs in family and employment visas.
• Allow more lower-skilled immigrants to come to the country when the economy is creating jobs than when it's not.
• Permit workers who have succeeded in the workplace and contributed to their communities over years to earn green cards.
• Create an agricultural worker program and allow employers to hire immigrants if they can demonstrate that American workers aren't available.
• Raise the annual cap for how many family-sponsored immigrants can come from any given country from 7 percent to 15 percent.
• Temporarily increase annual visa numbers by an unspecified amount. •Create "startup visas" for job-creating entrepreneurs and expand visa opportunities for those who invest in the U.S.
• Allow greater flexibility to add countries to the visa waiver program for tourists and let the State Department waive interview requirements for very-low-risk visitors.
HIGHLY
SKILLED
IMMIGRANTS
• Award green cards to immigrants who obtain advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or math from American universities.
• Award green cards to immigrants who obtain advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or math from American universities.
• Create a new visa category for highly skilled immigrants to work in federal science and technology labs on national security programs after being in the U.S. for two years and passing background checks.
SAME-SEX
COUPLES
• Does not include a provision allowing sponsorship of a same-sex partner.
• Allows U.S. citizens and permanent residents to sponsor a visa for a same-sex partner.
AGRICULTURAL
WORKERS
• Farm workers in the country illegally would have a quicker path to citizenship.
Obama
• Farm workers in the country illegally would have the same path to citizenship.
EMPLOYMENT
VERIFICATION
• Create a nonforgeable electronic system for requiring prospective workers to demonstrate legal status and identity.
• Stiff fines and criminal penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
• Create a fraud-resistant Social Security card and create nonforgeable documents for those without Social Security cards.
• Increase penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
• Over five years, phase in mandatory electronic employment verification, with exemptions for some small businesses.
"No other nation constantly renews itself, refreshes itself with the hopes, and the drive, and the optimism, and the dynamism of each new generation of immigrants."
Here are the top five. You can view the complete list with additional information at this link.
1. Immigrants start businesses. According to the Small Business Administration, immigrants are 30 percent more likely to start a business in the United States than non-immigrants, and 18 percent of all small business owners in the United States are immigrants.
Border Advocates Head to D.C. to Ask Congress to Control the Border Patrol
A press conference was held in San Diego, CA, on July 12th, 2012. Watch the video here:
SOUTHERN U.S. BORDER - In response to the breaking news that a federal grand jury has been called to investigate the killing of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas, the Southern Border Communities Coalition, a coalition of more than 60 organizations across the four southern border states, issued this statement.
"This is a positive and welcome development, and an indication that the Department of Justice is taking this investigation seriously," stated Andrea Guerrero, co-chair of the SBCC and executive director of the Equality Alliance of San Diego County. "This news comes days before SBCC representatives head to Washington, D.C. to ask Congress to open an agency-wide investigation of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), an agency within the Department of Homeland Security."
Guerrero and her SBCC colleague, Mike Wilson, the policy director at the Border Action Network in Arizona, traveled with the Hernandez family to D.C. eight weeks ago seeking answers to a killing that was two years old. "The Hernandez killing is not the only abuse perpetrated by border authorities, but it is emblematic of an agency out of control and operating with virtual impunity throughout the border region," stated Wilson. "In our meeting with Justice officials in May, it was clear that they had not yet talked to any of the witnesses in the case. We were concerned about what they were doing to preserve the evidence two years after the brutal torture and killing of Hernandez."
In that meeting, Hernandez' mother, Maria Luz Rojas Hernandez, pointedly asked the Justice officials what more they were waiting for, referring to the video evidence released by PBS's Need to Know program, "Crossing the Line at the Border" in April showing over a dozen agents surrounding her son and torturing him while he lay face down, handcuffed and hogtied on the ground. "It took seconds to kill my son, but we are still waiting after two years for a response from the government." Her cries for justice were echoed by over 33,000 people who signed an online petition at Presente.org and by 16 members of Congress who signed a letter calling for oversight and accountability.
