Senate Debates Immigration Reform Bill

The immigration bill proposed by the bipartisan Gang of Eight hit Senate floor last week. The hotly debated Bill took months of hard work by the bipartisan Gang. President Obama has urged the senate to pass the bill and "do the right thing." 

Senator Marco Rubio, spearheading the Gang of Eight, made it clear in his latest press statement that the long awaited Immigration Reform Bill is nearly upon completion. The debated bill will make the road for the citizenship of illegal underground immigrants clear. According to Rubio; however, “there are elements that need to be improved.” 

A majority of Americans and conservative Republicans are believed to support the immigration reform, if it does not lead to explosion of another illegal immigration wave in the country. 

Some provisions in the bill include: 

• Undocumented immigrants who entered the US territory before Dec 31, 2011 will be temporarily legalized and will be given full citizenship. 
•  Checking the immigration status of employees within five years to ensure they are not illegal. 
• Increase in Visa for blue collared jobs. 
• Increase in Visa for high skilled jobs requiring H1B and other Visa. 
• No incentive for relatives of citizens who wish to settle in the US. Relatives will be issued fewer Visas than before. 

What does this mean for green card applicants? 

According to an analysis carried out in April by the American Action Forum, this reform I likely to reduce the federal deficit by 2.5 trillion USD over the next decade. Moreover, deporting the illegal immigrant population is very expensive on the economy. Deporting one illegal immigrant costs the federal government $8000. This implies that an average undocumented immigrant can now apply for the green card, take the green card medical exam and clear it without the fear of being deported.

An analysis from the Social Security administration indicates that illegal immigrants already contribute $15 billion each year to the Social security administration. The immigration reform will strengthen social security as more legal workers will contribute more payroll taxes to the trust fund. 

Highly skilled immigrants, especially techies, would get hired on H1B visas and get better jobs since corporations, currently facing scarcity of such immigrants are already on the look out to hire such qualified employees. 

Even people attempting to qualify for greencard on the basis of low skilled jobs now stand a chance for citizenship, if the bill is passed. 

However, on the flip side, critics argue that the bill emphasizes border security more than providing legal status to nearly 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, according to immigration policy analyst Alex Nowrasteh in a statement to CBS. It is also feared that the gang of eight may have begun on the wrong foot, and the bill is likely to make matters worse for undocumented immigrants. According to Republican Senator Bernie Sanders, Vermont, the bill is likely to fill the large void of much needed lower paid employees to make large corporations happy.

After legalizing status of thousands of such undocumented immigrants, their wages will go down, lesser benefits will be paid since the average employer has way more options than before and the average laborer will counter a lot more competition than he currently faces.

The social implications to the passing of the bill include the reduction of exploitation of undocumented immigrants; encourage equality and entrepreneurship in the newly legalized immigrant population, which gets the economy going in the longer run, perhaps, in the coming ten years. 

It is estimated that if all goes well the Bill is likely to be passed by the end of the year.