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US Immigration News

Items tagged with "US Immigration News":

By Alex Owen

Washington commentators are predicting that President Obama's promise to introduce sweeping immigration reform in his second term may be defeated by Republican members of Congress.

Shortly after being re-elected in November 2012, the President said that he would make comprehensive immigration reform one of the major priorities of his second term. The White House announced in January that the President was happy to leave the drafting of the reform law to Congress.

An amendment to the immigration reform law currently before the US Congress will require foreign nationals to have their fingerprints taken when leaving the country. The amendment to the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act 2013 was voted in by the Judiciary Committee of the US Senate, the upper house of Congress.

Now it has been adopted, the checks will be introduced if the reform act achieves a sufficient majority in both houses of Congress; the Senate and The House of Representatives.

Comprehensive immigration reform came a step closer for the US on Tuesday when the US Senate's powerful Judiciary Committee voted 13-5 in favour of a bill that would radically alter almost every aspect of the US's immigration system.

Federal budget cuts in the US have caused lengthy queues at US airports because of a lack of immigration staff and it is likely that the problem will get worse over the busy summer months.

Democrats and Republicans in the US Congress have not been able to reach agreement over funding for the US's federal government and this has meant that many federal government departments have had to make cuts. Many federal staff have been having to work short hours and there has been disruption to many services.

The US Senate has begun to discuss the comprehensive immigration reform law that they will vote on later this year. Before the vote, various Senate committees will examine the law and propose amendments to it.

The law has already been discussed by the Senate Judiciary Committee and its Homeland Security Committee. The debates have been bad-tempered at times and, as usual, it is the proposal that the act should create a 'pathway to citizenship' for the estimated 11m illegal immigrants currently resident in the US that has created the most heat.

Dick Durbin, a Democratic Party senator from Illinois, has said that Indian IT firms like TCS, Infosys and Tata Consulting are abusing the US H-1B temporary work visa.

Mr Durbin told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Americans would be surprised to find out which companies were using H-1B visas to bring skilled staff into the US. 'H-1B visas are not going to Microsoft. They're going to these firms, largely in India, who are finding workers, engineers, who will work at low wages in the US for three years and pay a fee to Infosys or these companies,' he said.