At present, the government is working through an immigration reform plan that could allow the 11 million illegal immigrants presently in the United States to gain permanent residency and eventually receive citizenship. The bill is extremely detailed, with many different requirements put in place. For example, the government has decided that in order to make this immigration reform plan effective, they will need to improve border security throughout the United States.
This means added more border patrol agents to the southern border, adding miles of fencing, and implementing new technologies that can discourage immigrants from hopping the border. In addition to this, the senate has declared that they want visa monitoring to go on within the United States. This is because many illegal immigrants actually entered the country legally on visas but then overstayed their welcome once they moved in to the country. With visa-monitoring, the government can crack down on this practice and effectively reduce the amount of immigrants coming into the nation.
While these efforts are noble, they are by no means discouraging immigrants from entering the United States. In fact, recent data shows that despite border patrols and visa-monitoring, the government expects millions more immigrants enter the United States in the next few years. This is because the immigrants will be entering on skilled worker visas and be used to improve the economy on a variety of different levels. The bill says that the immigrant workers will be given jobs according to their skill set, from restaurant workers to agricultural workers to high-tech engineers in advanced businesses.
Instead of employing illegal immigrants to harvest berries and other produce, under the new bill legalized individuals would be given these jobs, The United States would encourage immigrants to apply for permanent residency, and then make sure that employers only hire those that have a permanent residency green card. Those that do not have a green card will no longer be able to work in the fields. In order to keep up with the economic needs, the government says that they will encourage more and more legal immigration into the U.S.
While illegal immigration will dwindle due to the harsh border patrols and new technology to discourage illegal immigrants, legal immigration will continue to grow under this bill. The Congressional Budget Office says that if no changes are made to the immigration bill after it is [assed. Then the U.S population will probably increase by 15 million people over the next two decades because of the many immigration workers that will be encouraged to come to the United States. Reports show that some individuals are all for the push in population, while some bigger cities fear that they could not accommodate many more immigrants.
Government officials say that these immigrants will meet the needs of the future. Under the current immigration laws, about 1 million illegal immigrants are able to get their green cards every year. New legislation would allow between 1.5 and 1.7 million people to receive their green card each year and put immigrants on a 13-year path to citizenship. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that about eight million immigrants will try to transition to legal status using this new pathway.
Even more immigrants will enter the United States on high-skilled worker visas, and more than 220,000 immigrants per year will be able to come to America on low-skilled worker visas. There will be more visas set aside for agricultural workers, and New York visas set aside for immigrants from South Korea, Africa, Ireland, and the Caribbean. If you want more information about this new immigration policy or are currently dealing with an immigration complication then talk to a local immigration lawyer today!