President Obama announced today that he will announce some steps that he can take to fix our broken immigration system, tomorrow. He stated that everyone agrees that the country’s immigration system is broken and that it needs to be fixed. He said that he would lay out things that he could do with his lawful authority as the President of the U.S. to make the country’s immigration system work better. And that he would also work with the U.S. Congress and come up with a bipartisan comprehensive immigration principles for comprehensive immigration reform two years ago, to explain why he is now using executive authority. He will also explain why the U.S. Congress must come up with a long-term solution to immigration reform.
The U.S. Senate passed a comprehensive immigration bill in 2013 and the country is still waiting for the House to vote on the bill. As the Republicans have failed to act on the issue, just like the other two presidents, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush who use their executive authority to prevent family separation, President Obama also will take executive actions and fix the immigration system. His actions will help the country to remain an immigrant-friendly nation and a country or laws!
Following are few key points contained in his 10 point immigration plan:
- Expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for more undocumented youth.
- Expand deferred action for undocumented adults whose children are green card holders or U.S. citizens.
- Prioritize deportations for gang members and undocumented immigrants with serious criminal records.
- Put an end to the ‘Secure Communities’ program and replace it with another program.
- Increase pay for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
- Create a new immigrant visa program for foreign born high-tech workers.
- Commit additional resources to the U.S.-Mexico border and stiffen border security.
- Promote a naturalization process that would grant 50 percent discount to the first 10,000 green card holders applying for naturalization.
- Expand the provisional waiver program what was announced in January 2013.
- Expand parole for the undocumented relatives of U.S. citizens military members.
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