After over two months of negotiations, the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” senators will tomorrow be unveiling their sweeping proposal to massively alter the immigration laws in the United States for the very first time in a generation. The senators involved have started moving to the airwaves as of yesterday in order to start selling the plan to the American public, with the 1000+ page bill to be publicly revealed this week.
“What we’re working on is a starting point,” says Senator Marco Rubio. “I think it’s a very good piece of legislation, but obviously there are 92 other senators out there who have ideas of their own.”
The bill will allow undocumented immigrants who came to the United States before or on December 31st 2011 to be able to put in an application for temporary legal residency almost immediately in order to be allowed to both live and work in the country. After that the focus would move to the enforcement of immigration laws, with the Department of Homeland Security tasked with monitoring all of the US-Mexico southwest border and stopping at least 90% of attempted crossovers. Business owners will also be forced to make use of the E-Verify system, allowing them to check their new employees’ immigration status.
Should these benchmarks be reached, unauthorized immigrants would, after ten years, be able to apply to get a green card, and three years after that put in an application for full US citizenship.