The immigration reform in the United States
After the introduction of the health care reform, the United States is going to face the equally difficult and long time coming challenge of a new immigration law.
The plan of the Obama administration for an all – embracing reform about the admittance and settlement of foreigners in the country is based essentially on four points: strengthening border security, streamlining legal immigration, providing undocumented immigrants in the US with a legal way to earn citizenship, and measures against employers hiring undocumented workers.
According to the White House, innovating the system would help save at least a trillion dollars over the next two decades. The legalization of those who are believed to be ten millions illegal workers in the United States would mean new revenues in terms of taxes, a growth of the economy, a new impulse to business and a significant economical contribution to the Social Security Trust Fund.
The hard core of the reform, the one on which the Obama administration insists, is that the current situation about immigration and the widespread illegality don’t do good to the economy of the country, and that it is necessary that that businesses and workers in the US «play by the same set of rules». In the words of Cecilia Muñoz, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, the payment of taxes for things like education and Social Security by the millions of undocumented workers will make the economy fairer for middle class families while significantly cutting the US deficit.
According to the spokesperson of the White House, Jay Carney, important progresses towards this direction have been made and there seems to be a bipartisan support to the reform. Obama’s biggest concern is to have the back-up of the Senate and, for this reason, he is committed to open a dialogue both with the Democrats and the Republicans. It is necessary to obtain a wide, bilateral consent in support of the principles about the immigration reform expressed by the so called “Gang of Eight“, the group of the Republican and Democratic leaders at the House of Representatives and at the Senate.
The US is a country of immigrants that owes its accomplishments also to the extraordinary human and cultural variety that it boasts. The government acknowledges the exceptional amalgam that the country offers as a point of strength and considers essential to regulate an inescapable situation to guarantee security, make the most out of the settlement of new citizens and «build a fair, effective and common sense immigration system that lives up to our heritage as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants».