Overview: Federal Immigration Policy and Proposed Reforms, Deborah Macmillan

Federal policy determines who may immigrate and how or whether they may become citizens plus other aspects of the lives of these people.


Today:

Most immigrants are a family member of a citizen or permanent resident. Next largest groups enter for an employment based reason or as refugees. Diversity immigrants are next. They come under the lottery system designed to allow immigrants from all countries.
In 1965 quotas were set for these groups. Some numbers below:

Family members....exceed 650,000/year
Employment....in 2005 about 124,000
Diversity...since 1990 about 25,000 per country per year.

Temporary visitors shouldn’t be relevant but about 25% to 40% of the unauthorized immigrants are individuals who have overstayed their temporary visas.

Percentage of foreign born in US population:
less than 5% in 1970; 9% in 1990; 12% in 2000;
between 12 and 13% in 2005
Illegal entries: most made by males seeking work. As such crossings become more difficult they tend to bring wives to US and their children are more often born in US. Thus permanent residence has become a more likely prospect for these families.

Naturalization: requires a 5 year residence as well as other qualifications. A naturalized citizen has most of the rights of a native born citizen. Permanent (legal) residents may sponsor immediate relatives for visas. Some such have been refused some governmental aid.

National language: Some states and congress have considered making English the national language.

Recent changes to immigration regulations: In 2002 the Patriot Act extended the criteria for foreign born entrance to include security and terrorist concerns and other items.

New regulations likely: In 2005 the McCain-Kennedy bill proposed that unauthorized immigrants in the country for five years or more could remain if they continued working, paid taxes including back taxes, learned English and paid fines.

Overall amnesty similar to that granted in 1986 seems unlikely. Possibly may be available for children whose family brought them to the US at a young age.

Increased quotas: Such increases where pressure is the highest could cut the number of unauthorized immigrants, if visa applications were processed promptly. Would benefit potential immigrants from Latin America, China, India and the Philippines.

Changed status for children of unauthorized immigrants: Some amendments have been proposed to the 14th amendment to the US constitution. The later (passed just after the Civil War) says that anyone born in the US is a citizen. Amendments would say that a child born in the US is a citizen only if at least one of his/her parents is a citizen.

State and local legislation: Several city and state laws have been passed to regulate immigration and policies that are directed to immigrants. Most seemed aimed at limiting local expenses. This is a reversal of the pervious century’s practice of the federal government’s regulating immigration through the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) which was established in the late 1800s.