President Obama Lays out Plans for Immigration Reforms
In a video posted on Facebook as well as on the White House website, President Obama announced his plans to address the nation on Thursday, November 20, 2014 at 8 pm ET.
In his address, President Obama is expected to roll out new executive orders that could potentially grant legal status to millions of illegal immigrants across the country.
In the video, President Obama said, “What I’m going to be laying out is the things that I can do, with my lawful authority as president, to make the system work better — even as I continue to work with Congress and encourage them to get a bipartisan, comprehensive bill that can solve the entire problem.”
His speech on Thursday will be a precursor to an event on Friday, November 21, 2014 at the Del Sol High School in Las Vegas.
This whole week has seen significant activity from President Obama on his plans for immigration reforms. For instance, on Wednesday, he had a dinner meeting with 18 Congressional Democrats where among other things his plans for immigration reforms were discussed.
At a broad level, the plans being mulled would likely give legal status to 5 million illegal immigrants in the country, or at least prevent them from deportation. Considering that latest estimates suggest there are anywhere between 11 to 12 million illegal / undocumented immigrants in the country, President Obama’s plans are likely to have widespread ramifications, positively impacting nearly half the illegal immigrant population.
Republicans have raised their objections to President Obama’s plans on numerous occasions, arguing that he has crossed the line as far as his constitutional authority is concerned.
The moves as planned by President Obama are especially likely to benefit parents with children born in the US, i.e. illegal immigrants whose children are otherwise US citizens by birth. Border security is also likely to get a boost since President Obama’s plans supposedly include revamping the deployment of border security personnel as well as increasing their salaries.
President Obama’s choice of location for the event on Friday – Las Vegas in Nevada – has significance with regard to the overall plans being envisaged, as Nevada has the highest proportion of undocumented individuals among all 50 states – 210,000 or 10.2% of the overall population of the state. This is compared to California with 9.4% and Texas with 8.9% as the top three states with highest proportion of undocumented immigrants.
The Facebook post put up by President Obama sums up his argument – “Everybody agrees that our immigration system is broken, unfortunately, Washington has allowed the problem to fester for too long.”
Should you have any questions or if you would like to schedule a consultation, please contact me by submitting the form or by calling me at (917) 426-8227. I accept clients from across the U.S. and around the world.
