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For the last three decades, U.S. policymakers have grappled with the problem of illegal immigration, whereby immigrants from all parts of the world (not just Mexico) come to the United States and live and work without securing legal documents that allow them to do so. In 1986, the United States thought it could solve the problem with an amnesty package, but the number of illegal immigrants has increased since that time and it is estimated today that there are 11-12 million illegal (also called “undocumented” by immigration groups and their allies) immigrants in the U.S. today. In fact, studies have shown that since the 1990s, illegal immigration in the United States has largely outpaced legal immigration. Deporting all of these people would be taxing for the federal government and be a public relations nightmare. As a result, the federal government is caught in a tough position of how to deal with these 11-12 million people while ensuring that future waves of unlawful immigration do not happen again. In 2012, President Barack Obama promised action on immigration reform to address this issue and although the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill last June, the Republican dominated House has yet to do the same and has refused to take up the Senate bill. Due to the growing Latino population in the United States (although again, I would caution extempers that illegal immigration is not exclusively a Latino issue), immigration reform is likely to be a hot button political and social issue for quite some time and extempers need to have a firm grasp on the legislative history and possibilities of reform to answer questions about this subject.
This topic brief will provide a history of immigration reform in the United States, discuss various proposals for immigration reform at the present time, and then analyze the possibilities of an immigration reform package being secured before the 2014 midterms or before the 2016 presidential election. This brief will center more on Latino illegal immigration due to the large amount of news coverage about the issue.
Readers are also encouraged to use the links below and in the related R&D to bolster their files about this topic.
Here is today’s premium R&D to accompany