While congressional leaders continue to be split over the issue of immigration reform, some advocates are beginning to believe that there are positive signs emerging for the 11 million undocumented immigrants that currently live in the United States. The New York Times says that an increasing level of support has been shown by the House of Representatives last week toward a number of policies relating to immigration reform that had previously been discounted on partisan lines.
While some congressional Republicans continue to want a series of small bills rather than the sweeping legislation sought by the Democrats, conservative legislators demonstrated last week that they are, in fact, open to many of the more popular concepts of immigration reform, including the idea of giving US citizenship to “Dreamers” – immigrants who came to the country as children.
A number of advocates of immigration reform, however, are continuing to hope that congressional Republicans will ultimately be willing to budge still further over the issue. “We are determined to win citizenship, not only for Dreamers, not only for immigration youth, but for all of the undocumented,” says the Managing Director of United We Dream, Cristina Jemenez.
Those who oppose sweeping immigration reform claim economic factors as their reason for objecting, an argument that seems to hold little water when compared with the economic benefits that such reform would bring to the US in the opinions of activists from across party lines. Reform policies would boost the economy and create jobs, a recent White House report claims.