Americans in waiting
In his State of the Union address, President Obama claimed correctly that the economy will benefit when undocumented immigrants are enabled to participate in it fully. In 1995, President Clinton used the same occasion to bemoan “the large number of illegal aliens” taking American jobs. Democrats have come a long way on the subject of immigration reform.
Recently, so have some Republicans. While Senator Marco Rubio’s SOTU rebuttal touched only briefly on immigration, the rising GOP star from Florida has been hard at work selling conservatives on reform. Rubio is part of the bipartisan group of senators that presented a framework for an immigration bill in late January. Meanwhile, former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is cochairing a new task force of high-profile citizens formed to pressure Congress to pass immigration reform. If these bipartisan efforts lead to serious legislation, the economy will be better for it—as will many people’s lives.
But what constitutes serious reform? Obama focused on steps that he and the Senate group agree on: strengthen border security to keep undocumented people out and create a path to citizenship for the millions already in. Yet much remains to be hashed out, especially the specifics of the path to citizenship. How arduous a path will this be? And when can people get started?
