Immigration Reform Over the Past Fifteen Years

Immigration Reform has not shown much progress over the past fifteen years. There is a large controversy over immigration. Generally speaking there are two sides of the debate. The side most often associated with the Democratic party of accepting immigrants and making more funds/resources available to them. As well as the side most associated with the Republican party of limiting the amount of immigrants allowed into the states as well as funding available for them. Because of the lack of bipartisanship the immigration reform is still not making significant progress from when it surfaced as early as the 1980’s.

If an individual is seeking asylum in the United States there several options to choose from. There are over thirty types of visas in which an individual can apply for as well as a green card. Visas are meant for a temporary stay of no more than three years. Green cards are meant for a stay of five years or more. In order to become a citizen you must obtain a green card and go through the process of naturalization. The process of naturalization includes having a green card for five years, the ability to speak English, and pass a U.S. history exam.

Every year congress has tried to tackle “immigration reform” but have not accomplished much due to a lack of communication. Over six million immigrant applications are submitted each year. That being said, because of the attention to detail that each application needs by the reviewer, the applications cannot be done in a timely manner. It puts a large amount of stress on the department to process all the request they have received.

Before September 11, 2001 Congress was working on a plan to find a more efficient way to process applications in order to allow more requests to be processed, allowing more immigrants into the country. After September 11, 2001 there was a large debate over allowing more immigrants and the matter of national security. The talk shifted from allowing immigrants to enter the U.S. and fix the broken system, to allowing less immigrants because a fear of terrorism. The talk was shifted again when our economy was failing in 2007. There was a large fear of immigrants taking jobs that U.S. citizens could fill.

The issue was brought up by President Obama in a speech he gave in November 2014. Although he revisited and acknowledged how the system was broken there has not been much action of the matter. Meanwhile federal funding for immigrants is being cut and states are expected to pick up the slack. Immigration reform needs to see progress soon or it will become a dividing issue in our society.