Immigration Reform: Competing Plans | Legal Language Services

President Obama has made it clear that immigration reform is a high priority for the White House this term. Both the president and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., are proposing plans for immigration reform.

Here is a breakdown of how Obama and Rubio?s immigration reform plans compare.

Immigration Reform: Comprehensive or Piecemeal?

Obama favors immigration reform in a comprehensive plan, which means a lot of changes in one piece of legislation. Rubio has stated that a comprehensive approach risks overlooking poor policies ? he would prefer to have four or five separate bills to tackle discrete immigration issues.

Citizenship for Undocumented Immigrants

Obama has stated that the White House will reject any plans for immigration reform which do not include a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. This pathway will include hurdles, such as paying back taxes, undergoing criminal background checks, learning English and paying a processing fee.

Rubio also supports the concept of hurdles, though they would not automatically afford citizenship to undocumented immigrants. His immigration reform would give ?a form of temporary limbo? to undocumented immigrants by granting them legal status, after which they could apply for green cards and then potentially citizenship.

Neither immigration reform policy yields a particularly quick path to citizenship: Obama has previously outlined a plan which would grant a green card in eight years and citizenship in an additional five years.

Rubio has been vague with his timeframes, stating that it ?would have to be long enough to ensure that it?s not easier to do it this way than it would be the legal way.? Rubio also stated that the wait should not be ?indefinite.?

Immigration Reform: Backlogs

Both sides recognize the need to deal with backlogs in the immigration system. Obtaining visas from countries such as the Philippines or Mexico can take decades; and the farming, technology and healthcare industries have all cited a need for more immigrant workers.

Obama plans to add more visas in order to reduce wait times, but has not stated specific plans for achieving this.

Rubio wants to increase visas for highly-skilled workers. Since there are limits to how many visas can be granted each year, he can achieve this in two ways: either by redistributing the amounts of family and work visas allotted each year; or by increasing the overall number of visas granted annually and simply adding to the highly-skilled work visa allowance. Rubio has stated that he prefers the latter approach.

Guest Worker Program

Obama and Rubio?s proposed immigration reforms each include a guest worker program. Neither has given specifics, but both parties acknowledge that a significant amount of illegal immigration occurs because of a lack of legal pathways for low-wage workers to come to the US.

Both plans have another thing in common: national system checks. A national system to check the legal status of workers, such as E-Verify, would reduce workplace fraud. However, E-Verify has been criticized for being unreliable, and is currently being used by less than 10 percent of US businesses.

Both plans for immigration reform have their pros and cons. Which version of immigration reform do you favor?

Source: http://www.legallanguage.com/legal-articles/immigration-reform-plans/