Tuesday, January 29, 2013

"THE POLITICS OF COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM IN THE OBAMA'S PRESIDENCY"

America is a true melting pot in the human universe of our time and she remains a nation of immigrants that represent the most racially, ethnically, culturally and religiously diverse country in the entire world. People from all walks of life have been coming to America from all over the world for the last hundreds of years looking for a personal bite from the American dream and her vast opportunities in every field of the human endeavors. America remains a nation of laws despite opening her doors very wide to immigrants from all over the world.

Today in 2013, it is estimated that about 11 million undocumented people live in America illegally. How did these individuals enter into America? What is wrong with the America's present immigration laws that left these 11 million people behind? Who benefits from illegal immigration in America today? How do these illegal immigrant survive in America without the official documentations? Why is President Barack Obama interested in a comprehensive immigration reform in the second term of his presidency? Why is the Republican and the Democrat members of the United States Congress jointly interested and working together on a comprehensive immigration reform in 2013  almost 7 years later after the former United States President George Bush Jr first sent an immigration bill to the then United States Congress?

The first category of these illegal immigrants are estimated to be about 40% of the 11 million illegal immigrants in America. They came into America with issued temporary visas as tourists, international students, religious workers, temporary workers, refugees and asylees from the America's embassies and consulates abroad. The first category of these illegal immigrants came from Africa, Europe, Middle East, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. They were inspected and documented by the border and immigration officials in America when they entered America by sea, land or air. These legal non-immigrants then decided to overstay their visa durations in America and then became illegal immigrants.

The second category of illegal immigrants in America that are estimated to be about 60% of all the illegal immigrants in America did not enter into the United States with any issued visas and they were never interviewed by the America's visa officers at the America's embassies and consulates overseas nor were they officially inspected at their various entry ports (land, sea and air) into the United States by the United States border patrol and immigration officials. The second category of illegal immigrants came mainly from the two countries of Mexico and Canada that have porous borders with the United States. Some of them also came from the nations of the South American continent through the American-Mexican porous borders as well as from countries all over the world that have visa waiver programs with the United States.

The two major driving forces in 2013 for this comprehensive immigration reform in America are primarily the rapidly changing presidential demographics in America and the growing population of the Latino-Americans that both became too pronounced in the 2012 presidential election. President Barack Obama won 71% of the Latino-American votes as against his political rival Mitt Romney who won less than 30% of their votes, the lowest for any GOP presidential candidate since the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980 to the White House. About 60, 000 Latino-Americans turn voting age of 18 years old every month which translates directly to about 4 million new votes in every presidential circle. The three traditional GOP southern states of Texas, Georgia and Arizona may soon become the new battleground states in the next presidential elections of 2016 or latest in the 2020 presidential election with the rapidly growing Latino-American populations in those states. No presidential candidates from the America's two national political parties can win the White House again in America without winning the massive votes of the Latino-Americans who are now a major national voting bloc in America presently. In conclusion, the battle line is now fully drawn by the Democrats and the Republicans to now go ahead and fight tooth and nail for the highly prized Latino-American votes and voters through this proposed comprehensive immigration reform that is all about politics and winning the White House in the future.


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