The New York Times reported today that the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) is planning ahead for the possibility of legalizing millions of undocumented aliens.
We are all aware that the Obama Administration has placed immigration reform on the back burner until next year because of more pressing issues that mist be resolved including, health care reform, the economy, and the war on terror.
Alejandro Mayorkas, the USCIS Director said in an interview yesterday,
“We are under way to prepare for that and the President has told immigration officials that a legalization program would be part of legislation the White House would propose.”
The USCIS Director also said,
“The agency’s goal, he said, is to be ready to expand rapidly to handle the gigantic increase in visa applications it would face if the legislation, known as comprehensive immigration reform, passed Congress.”
Despite the President’s efforts to reform our nation’s immigration system, there is a tremendous amount of opposition in Congress. Just recently, we reported that the USCIS is considering raising filing fees due to a revenue shortage. At the same time, critics argue that the USCIS is having a difficult time doing their job as it is and now they want to divert their limited resources to planning for an opening of the floodgates.
The way we see it, the concept of immigration reform will require a careful balancing act of anticipating a heavier workload, obtaining more money for the USCIS to eliminate its deficit and, for a consensus to be reached between the President and lawmakers to pass legislation to resolve our nation’s immigration problem.
