Immigration reform was one of President Barack Obama's goals as he entered the White House for his first term. That didn't get done in the first term which made it more vital for the President to attack the issue in his second term. This paper points to the problem, the potential solutions, and the gridlock in the U.S. Congress that has prevented the problem from even being serious addressed let alone a solution found.
Why are there an estimated 11.7 million illegal Latino immigrants living in the United States? Part of the reason there are so many are here (mostly from Mexico) is that the U.S. / Mexican border is not secure, and never has been. Nevertheless, the progressive view of this issue is that the nearly twelve million immigrants living and working here deserve to have a path to citizenship, and that has been part of the difficulty in getting reform passed in Congress. The right wing view of this issue is that offering a program through which illegal immigrants may become American citizens amounts to "amnesty"; and the far right wing view is that these 12 million immigrants should be deported.
The Economics - Background
Meanwhile, the economics of the situation calls for reforms (rather than deportations) because illegal immigrants make huge contributions to the American economy. Adam Davidson writes in The New York Times writes that first of all, on average, family income in the U.S. is "increased by a small, but clearly positive amount, because of immigration" (Davidson, 2013). The chief actuary for the Social Security Administration (Stephen Goss) explains that undocumented workers put about "$15 billion a year" into Social Security through payroll taxes (Davidson, p. 3). In the past twenty years or so undocumented workers in the U.S. have contributed about $300 billion, or about ten percent of the $2.7 trillion that is in the Social Security Trust Fund (Davidson, p. 3).
It is true that undocumented workers do "impose a substantial net cost to state and local governments…[through] public assistance, schools and medical care"; however, the financial value of the benefits "…far outweigh the costs" (Davidson, p. 3). The Center for American Progress suggests that deporting most undocumented immigrants would drain $2.5 trillion" from the American economy over ten years (Burns, et al., 2013). On the other hand legalizing those 11.7 million undocumented workers would add "…at least $1.5 trillion to the U.S. economy over 10 years" (Burns, p. 7). During the George W. Bush Administration the President reported that immigration adds $37 billion to the American economy annually; and there would be up to $5.4 billion "in additional net tax revenue nationally" (Burns, p. 7).
U.S. Senate Passes Immigration Reform -- U.S. House of Representatives Balks
Perhaps they were responding to various polls that show a clear majority of Americans support giving undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship -- up to 81% support a path to citizenship in a CNN/ORC poll; 78% in a FOX poll; 77% in a CBS News poll -- but in any event the U.S. Senate passed a wide-ranging immigration reform bill. The vote was 68 to 32, with 14 Republicans joining the majority. The participation by Republicans is significant because Republican leaders vowed on the very day Obama was inaugurated that the GOP leadership would present "…united and unyielding opposition to the president's economic policies" (Beinart, 2014). And "If Obama was for it, we had to be against it," said former Ohio Republican Senator George Voinovich (Beinart, p. 1).
As proof that the Republicans actually set out to shoot down every Obama proposal and all his legislation, "…every Republican in the House voted against Obama's stimulus package," Beinart wrote, albeit the stimulus package brought the country out of the deep recession, the housing market has rebounded and unemployment is far below what it was after George W. Bush left office. Every Republican in the House voted against the Affordable Care Act, and several other pieces of legislation as well.
The bill was not even close to "amnesty" (that conservatives have been fond of calling it); in fact it offers a chance for undocumented immigrants to become citizens after service to the U.S., after learning...
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