President Obama has been vocal in his plans to set up a bipartisan path to citizenship, enabling those immigrants who have become productive members of society to become legal citizens.
One of Obama’s major reforms is the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act is focused on young people, allowing the children of illegal immigrants to become American citizens. Obama acknowledges that many children have been brought to the United States by their families, grown up here and have come to consider themselves Americans in every way but on paper. The DREAM Act allows this specific set of illegal immigrants to either serve in the military or earn a college degree from a U.S. institution to become legal citizens.
This would be an extension of actions already taken by the Department of Homeland Security, which has stipulated that it will no longer initiate the deportation of young people who arrived in the country before the age of 16 and have lived here for at least five years. The individuals must also be under the age of 30 and have no criminal record. By putting this legislation in place, Obama has set up a safer and fairer framework for young people who did not intentionally violate any immigration laws. Under this legislation, young people can apply for a two-year ‘non-immigrant’ work permit, which can then be renewed. By allowing this type of realistic approach to a broken immigration system, Obama offers a better way to deal with young immigrants who were brought to this country through no fault of their own and have adopted this culture as their own.
Many people misconstrue the threat that many illegal immigrants pose to the job market. Despite high unemployment, most illegal immigrants are employed in manual labor sectors, which often includes jobs able-bodied, out-of-work American citizens simply do not want. As a result, many needed jobs are left vacant which leads to an increase in cost to consumers of certain goods and services. When the HB56 law was passed in Alabama, the number of available workers in the state dropped significantly. Agriculture and farming operations, which are major industries in our state, are still left without enough workers to operate at full capacity, which burdens the entire supply chain.
Romney’s advocation of a policy to bypass explicit legislation and encourage a climate of ‘self-deportation’ seems to be a cowardly and passive approach to dealing with such a major national security issue. And despite a long-held Republican notion that Obama has thumbed his nose at the current laws designed to curb illegal immigration, the president’s administration has deported more illegal immigrants than any president since the 1950s. Obama’s sensible approach to providing a more stable immigration system, while still enforcing current laws and ridding our society of those who pose a threat to our security and livelihoods, provides the best approach to the future of immigration policy in the United States.
