Sudden agreement on US immigration reform
- The Economist
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Marcos Rubio, Cuban-American Republican Senator for Florida, succeeded in getting senatorial approval for his immigration plan including bypartisan support from Senators Chuck Schumer and John McCain, among others >> More
Washington, DC, Jan. 29.─ After years of fruitless argument, America now has not one but two serious proposals for comprehensive immigration reform. The first came on Monday, from a bipartisan group of eight senators. The second came today, from Barack Obama, who flew to Las Vegas to give a speech on the subject; not a formal proposal, per se, but an expansion of his blueprint from May 2011. On the issues that were apparently too delicate to discuss in public a year ago, there's now broad agreement: there should be a path to citizenship for immigrants who are already here illegally, the country should issue more green cards for highly-skilled immigrants, and employers who deliberately hire unauthorised immigrants should be penalised for it.
The president's proposal does differ from the Senate framework in several respects. The most notable is that the latter would only allow unauthorised immigrants to become legal permanent residents; citizenship would have to wait until various border-security reforms have been implemented.
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