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For Immediate
Release
White House Announces Plans For Immigration
Reform
Obama Administration to Make Good on Promise
to Fix Our Nation's Most Complex Problems
April 9, 2009
Washington, DC - As the
New York Times reported
today, the Obama administration has reiterated its intention to
tackle comprehensive immigration reform this year. Recent statements
from Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid have also
signaled their support. Yet some observers had assumed that the
promise President Obama made during his campaign to reform the
dysfunctional U.S. immigration system during his first year in
office would be sidelined by the current recession. But, as the
White House made clear today, the President intends to make good on
his promise. The following is a statement by Angela Kelley,
Director of the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) in Washington,
DC.
"We applaud the White House, Senator Harry
Reid, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi for their vision, leadership,
and commitment to passing comprehensive and meaningful immigration
reform this year. The United States, now more than ever, needs
workable solutions that fix our broken immigration system, support
our economic recovery, and allow honest and hardworking people to
become lawful and contributing members of our
society.
The White House said a key component of
comprehensive immigration reform will be the creation of a pathway
to legal status for the roughly 12 million undocumented immigrants
now living in the United States. Although critics of reform
often deride anything short of mass deportation as a blanket
'amnesty,' a well-tailored legalization program would, in fact,
bring order and legality to bear on what is now a chaotic and
unregulated situation. Moreover, legalization would not add new
workers to a U.S. economy already reeling from high
unemployment. Rather, it would give legal status, and the
full protection of labor laws, to workers who are already
here. Undocumented immigrants applying for legal status would
not only have to register with the federal government, but would
also have to meet a number of other requirements, including paying
taxes, getting criminal background checks, learning
English, and paying a fine.
In addition,
comprehensive reform will have to address many of the other flaws
and inequities within our immigration system. It will have to reduce
the enormous backlog of applications for family reunification, which
impose lengthy waiting times on individuals abroad who are trying to
rejoin their families in the United States. It will have to
create smarter and more targeted enforcement mechanisms that find
individuals who pose a danger to public safety or national security,
rather than expending resources on chasing workers and breaking
apart families. And it will have to consider appropriate legal
limits on immigration that rise and fall with the labor needs of our
economy, rather than arbitrary numerical caps that bear no
relationship to labor demand.
The time is now to
resolve this ongoing and complex problem. Fixing our immigration
system is an important part of addressing our nation's economic,
healthcare, and homeland security challenges. The White House has
taken the first step today and we stand committed in supporting
their efforts towards achieving sensible and comprehensive reform
this year."
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For press inquiries
contact:
Wendy Sefsaf, 202-507-7524 or email wse...@ailf.org
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