Welcome to our Immigration News and Opinions detail page from myUSAi.org. http://myusai.org 2013-05-25T17:11:40+01:00 http://myusai.org http://myusai.org/images/myusai_logo_small.jpg text/html http://www.eurasianet.org/node/66989 Eurasia.net, May 20. Each year around this time, millions of would-be immigrants to the United States from around the world hold their breath. Early May is when the U.S. State Department releases its shortlist of applicants to the annual green-card lottery. About half of them -- 55,000 people -- will receive permanent-residence visas, the tickets to eventual citizenship.This year, like any other, Internet forums on U.S. immigration, such as the Russian-language "Govorim Pro Ameriku" (Talking About America), are abuzz with posts from lottery hopefuls. The program has received well over 10 million applicants from the former Soviet Union since its inception. Some express joy at making the first cut, while those not chosen consider trying their luck next year. This time, however, there may not be a next year. The forums are abuzz about that possibility, too. text/html http://immigrationimpact.com/2013/05/20/day-4-of-senate-immigration-mark-up-goes-late-into-night/ ImmigrationImpact.com, May 20. Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee began its fourth day—and likely last week—of the immigration reform bill’s mark-up. After spending most of the day finishing the Title 3 (interior enforcement) amendments, the senators began on the last part of the bill, Title 2 (legalization), which includes the path to citizenship. They considered 50 amendments and approved 30 of them; five were withdrawn. Over roughly eight hours of debate, the committee agreed to strong due process changes to S. 744, including providing immigrants in removal proceedings the right to access a copy of their A files. And they approved amendments from Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) that will help DREAMers who want to join the military or go to college. For the most part, efforts to strip the bill of protections for asylum seekers, victims of domestic violence and trafficking were voted down. Notably, an amendment to make three drunk driving convictions an aggravated felony (similar to an amendment adopted by the Judiciary Committee last year during the VAWA debate) offered by Senator Grassley passed 17 to 1, with Senator Leahy as the sole dissenting vote. text/html http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013305200065 DelawareOnline, May 20. OPINION. A couple of weeks ago, in a partisan jab, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (a Democrat) accused Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (a Republican) of being "anti-immigration." This was an odd accusation to level at someone whose personal hero is his father, Rafael, who immigrated to the United States from Cuba in 1957. Still, Cruz isn't doing himself any favors. He's a smart guy, but some of the things he has said about immigration reform have not sounded smart. So I was glad that he redeemed himself by taking a stand against GOP-led efforts to limit legal immigration. text/html http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/judge-lets-ariz-immigrant-license-policy-stand-19198175#.UZu0wLWG3OE abcnews. May 17. A judge on Thursday refused to halt Gov. Jan Brewer's order that denies driver's licenses for young immigrants in Arizona who have gotten work permits and avoided deportation under an Obama administration policy. U.S. District Judge David Campbell denied a request from immigrant rights advocates for a preliminary injunction and threw out one of their arguments, but their lawsuit remains alive as they pursue arguments that the young immigrants are suffering from unequal treatment. Arizona's refusal to view those in President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program as legal residents has become the most visible challenge to his announcement in June that some young immigrants would be protected from deportation. The Department of Homeland Security has said immigrants with work permits issued under the policy are lawfully present in the U.S. text/html http://www.voanews.com/content/green-card-lottery-immigration-reform-us-visa/1662670.html May 16, VOA. The popular Green Card Lottery program could be eliminated if the U.S. Congress passes the current version of the bipartisan immigration reform plan. The lottery was set up as a way to give anyone a chance at the "American dream." But the new plan will focus instead on adding more highly-educated workers in science, technology, engineering and math. Two years ago Rafiq-ul-Islam won a U.S. permanent resident visa through the Green Card Lottery and came to the United States from Bangladesh -- with little more than the clothing he owned and a dream of a better life in America. “I apply for [and] came [to] America. I want to change my luck. If I can change my luck I can support my family, everything, all will be changed, everything like, that’s why I applied,” he said. The late Senator Edward Kennedy came up with the idea for a visa lottery system in the 1990s -- as a way to give opportunity to European and other countries with low immigration quotas. text/html http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/300311-senate-immigration-gang-frustrates-gop-efforts-to-bolster-border-enforcement The Hill, May 16. The Senate Gang of Eight stayed unified through the third day of marking up immigration reform legislation, frustrating Republican attempts to strengthen the bill’s enforcement provisions. Democrats touted the Senate Judiciary Committee’s passage of three Republican amendments to crack down on the future hiring of illegal immigrants, but senior Republicans on the panel were left disgruntled by the failure of stronger proposals. “The gang’s agreement to stick together is firmly in place. They’ve united in opposition to a lot of good amendments,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). “Anything that comes close to being a significant vote, they voted ‘no’ on. “I’m disappointed in that,” he added. Republican members of the Gang of Eight, Sens. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.), joined with Democrats to defeat a proposal sponsored by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) requiring the government to implement an E-Verify program to combat the future hiring of illegal workers within 18 months after the bill’s enactment. text/html http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/bipartisan-house-group-reaches-preliminary-immigration-deal/ NYTimes, May 16. A bipartisan group in the House working on an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws reached a deal in principle Thursday evening, aides said. The group plans to introduce its bill in June. Details of the compromise were not released, but, much like a bill introduced in the Senate, the House legislation will include a path to legalization for the 11 million undocumented workers already in the country, as well as increased border security measures. The House version, though, is expected to be more conservative in its approach to granting illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, among a number of central issues. It will most likely include a 15-year path to citizenship, rather than the 13-year path offered in the Senate proposal, as well as requiring illegal immigrants to sign an admission that they had violated United States immigration laws, aides said. text/html http://immigrationimpact.com/2013/05/17/will-due-process-protections-be-preserved-in-senate-mark-up/ ImmigrationImpact.com, May 17. On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee began its mark-up of Title III of S.744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act. When the mark-up continues on Monday, Senators are likely to vote on amendments addressing immigration courts. These amendments will be crucial in determining whether the full Senate receives a bill that provides due process protections to immigrants in removal proceedings. S.744 would make significant improvements to an immigration court system that, for far too long, has failed to provide thousands of noncitizens with a meaningful opportunity to be heard. Currently, immigrants are deported without ever seeing a courtroom or after their cases receive only perfunctory review. Vulnerable noncitizens go before a judge without access to an attorney or necessary evidence. text/html http://immigrationimpact.com/2013/05/15/w-is-for-worker-why-the-economy-benefits-from-a-robust-new-worker-program/ ImmigrationImpact.com, May 15. The Senate Judiciary Committee returns to its task of marking up S. 744 tomorrow, taking up, among other things, possible amendments to the W visa program for new nonimmigrant workers. This new program, blessed by both business and labor, is an effort to acknowledge the need for a more flexible system for meeting the demand for workers in certain occupations and industries that require less-skilled workers. At Tuesday’s hearing, several Senators challenged the idea that the American workforce needed to be supplemented with immigrant labor, but the evidence is overwhelming that there is both a need and an economic benefit to having a flexible and responsive program in place to bring in new workers where they are most needed. text/html http://www.policymic.com/articles/42205/immigration-reform-2013-5-critical-amendments-that-could-kill-the-whole-thing PolicyMic.com, May 15. OPINION. S. 744, the immigration reform bill currently making its way through Congress, is in one of its most vulnerable periods of its already-fragile life. From the left and from the right, hundreds of amendments are flooding the bill. Some are genuinely aimed at improving the bill. Many, however, are "poison pill" amendments, designed to make the resulting legislation unpalatable to one or both of the two sides, thus killing the bill. Who, then, is the guardian of this legislation, on whom the entire nation's hopes of any immigration reform rely? The original "Gang of 8," the bipartisan group that authored the bill, have pledged cooperation to shoot down any amendment that could threaten the existence of the bill. Some of the amendments that could completely kill immigration reform are: text/html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-mazie-hirono/perfecting-the-immigratio_b_3273152.htm HuffingtonPost, May 14. OPINION. The Gang of Eight's immigration reform bill is a great start. But it's not perfect -- and I intend to do something about it. Last week, I introduced several amendments to the bill, but as an immigrant who came to this country as a young student, one of these amendments is particularly close to my heart: It would make DREAM Act students eligible for federal financial aid. Right now, students who were brought to this country as children through no fault of their own ("DREAMers") can't get access to any federal aid. No work-study. No government-backed student loans. Nothing. My amendment would fix this, and give these students the same options to pay for their education as every other studious young American. We're going to face stiff opposition from some of my Senate colleagues who want to make it harder for DREAM Act students to succeed. DREAM Act students have grown up in our schools, pledging allegiance to our flag everyday. Now they want to earn college degrees here, to help them give back to their communities, start businesses, create jobs, and pay taxes. text/html http://tinyurl.com/mj9urlx WashingtonPost, May 12. Mark Jacobsen, a lawyer in Hawaii who has helped hundreds of lottery applicants in the past 20 years, called the scams a “huge problem” that has gotten worse with reliance on the Internet. “People set up Web sites that mimic the official U.S. government sites,” he said in a telephone interview. “They send out e-mails telling people they have won and that they have to send a $1,000 processing fee right away. In fact, there is no official fee at all.” The relatively lax requirements for lottery applications have also aroused concerns that it can allow terrorists to slip into the country. To be eligible, someone must be an adult from one of the listed countries, have a high school degree or two years’ work experience, and have no criminal record. text/html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/us/politics/house-group-works-on-own-version-of-immigration-bill.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0 NYTimes, May 11. A bipartisan group in the House of Representatives has been meeting on and off for four years behind closed doors, working on its own version of legislation to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws. But with a comprehensive bill already making its way through the Senate Judiciary Committee, the House group is fast losing its chance to shape the debate percolating on Capitol Hill, let alone put forth a proposal of its own. “I think a lot of us believed in this bipartisan group that we would have finished quite some time ago,” said Representative Xavier Becerra, Democrat of California and a member of the group. “I think you really make it tough for yourself, and I hope House Republicans would agree with me on that, that you make it difficult to believe that you’re for fixing the broken immigration system and getting our economy on track unless you really seriously try to start in May.” text/html http://tinyurl.com/d4rlp7u WashingtonPost, May 10. OPINION. Back in August, I interviewed a top Obama administration official who thought that Obama had won the election on the day he signed the executive order effectively implementing the DREAM Act. That might also have been the day he passed immigration reform. Republicans hated the move. They said it made it almost impossible to imagine anything constructive coming out of Congress. ”The president’s announcement really inflamed the politics on both sides, making it harder for Sen. Rubio to find a consensus,” said Aex Conant, Rubios’ spokesman. But that executive action is coming to play an outsized, and surprisingly constructive, role in the immigration debate. It’s emerged as a key conservative talking point — in favor of the bill. Steven Law, president and CEO of American Crossroads, tells the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel that Obama’s executive order proves he would “reshape the system by executive fiat, which is the last thing any conservative should want.” text/html http://www.firstpost.com/world/india-lobbies-on-capitol-hill-against-visa-catch-in-us-immigration-bill-769723.html Firstpost, May 10. The US-India Business Council and Nasscom which represents India’s technology sector, which clocks in nearly $100 billion in annual revenue, are spearheading a lobbying push to kill complicated and restrictive provisions for H-1B and L-1 visas in the Senate Gang of Eight’s new US immigration bill. The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday began debating more than 300 amendments filed on a sweeping immigration bill struck by a bipartisan group of senators known as the Gang of Eight. The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on the amendments over the course of several hearings, and those changes will decide whether the immigration bill can satisfy the full Senate, a skeptical House of Representatives and President Obama’s administration. India is disappointed that the immigration bill creates more H-1B and L-1 visas but then makes them harder to use with new government rules and wage fixing. Nasscom has hired high-profile lobbyist Barbour Griffith & Rogers to make India’s case on the Hill. text/html http://immigrationimpact.com/2013/05/10/the-important-role-of-immigrants-in-americas-innovation-economy/ ImmigrationImpact, May 10. OPINION. This week, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation weighed in on immigration reform with a hearing on the role of immigrants in America’s innovation economy. Remarks from Sens. Rockefeller (D-WV) and Thune (R-SD) noted the contributions of immigrant innovators and entrepreneurs. Immigrants in the United States were named as inventors or co-inventors on 25.6 percent of international patent applications filed from the U.S. in 2006. Furthermore, temporary workers and permanent residents made contributions to over half of the international patents filed by several large, multi-national companies. Temporary and permanent foreign-born workers represent at least 24 percent of the nation’s scientists and 47 percent of engineers with doctoral degrees. But Senator Rockefeller also noted that high-skilled immigrants are foundacross America, not only in high-tech industries. text/html http://townhall.com/columnists/lindachavez/2013/05/10/heritages-scare-tactics-n1592152 Townhall.com, May 10. The immigration debate has taken a sudden and nasty turn with the publication of a new report by The Heritage Foundation claiming that reform legislation will end up costing American taxpayers $6.3 trillion. The Heritage Foundation, one of the most respected conservative organizations in the U.S., has sullied its reputation by lending its name to this tendentious piece of propaganda. First, the study grossly exaggerates the "cost" of immigration reform by assuming that all of those who gain legal status will claim welfare and other social service benefits as soon as they become eligible. While it is true that Hispanic immigrants new to the U.S. are, on average, substantially poorer than the native-born population, they do not remain so. What's more, low-income immigrants access welfare benefits at lower rates than the native-born and receive, on average, benefits that are significantly less than native-born recipients, according to a study by the Cato Institute. text/html http://tinyurl.com/cctnf7t Washington Post, May 9. The difficult road ahead for comprehensive immigration reform became more evident Thursday as Republican critics mounted a sustained assault on the legislation, demanding that it include considerably greater border security measures before legalizing any undocumented immigrants. The contentious beginning of the debate in the Senate, where the bill’s prospects for approval are considerably better than in the House, was a clear signal of tough times as the legislation moves forward. During a 71 / 2-hour hearing, the Judiciary Committee wrestled over 32 proposed changes focused on border security and control as the committee began a long and grueling amendment process that is expect to last weeks. text/html http://www.waff.com/story/22212064/sessions-outlines-problems-with-immigration-bill WAFF News, May 9. Immigration reform was the topic on Thursday in Washington, and one Alabama senator played a prominent role. Jeff Sessions has been an outspoken advocate against the so-called "gang of 8" bill. Sessions added more than 45 amendments to it earlier this week in hopes of derailing the legislation. Thursday morning, he outlined his issues with the proposals. "It is not going to be helpful for American workers when these 11-million are legalized," Sessions remarked. "They'll then be able to take virtually any job in the marketplace because they're illegal and didn't come here lawfully. We've got millions of Americans unemployed." One of Sessions' amendments calls for 700 miles of double layer fencing along the border - at a cost of $6-billion. He quoted a famous poem saying, "good fences make good neighbors." text/html http://tinyurl.com/d4znkc5 ImmigrationImpact, May 9. OPINION. Will the immigration reform bill create millions of jobs, boost GDP, and help balance the budget? A new report by the Social Security Administration says that it will, by putting undocumented immigrants on the tax rolls and allowing them to participate fully and legally in the U.S. economy. The Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration estimates that the proposed bipartisan immigration reform bill will allow about 8 million undocumented individuals, many of whom already work in the underground economy, to become legal and pay taxes. As a result, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, the legislation will add more than 6.5 million taxpayers over a decade, generating more than $275 billion in revenue for Social Security. Social Security costs would increase by only $33 billion, resulting in a significant net benefit. The bill would also bring in more than $64 billion in revenue for Medicare over 10 years. text/html http://www.newstimeafrica.com/archives/31837 NewsTimeAfrica, May 9. Advocates for the African diaspora in the United States have stepped up a campaign to urge the U.S. Congress not to end a longstanding visa programme aimed at boosting immigration from “underrepresented countries”. The programme, known as the diversity visa lottery, has in recent years been sharply tilted towards African immigration. Since 2008, immigrants from African countries have made up nearly half of the 55,000 randomly awarded U.S. work visas annually awarded. Yet under a landmark bipartisan proposal to overhaul the U.S. immigration system, released in mid-April and currently being debated in the U.S. Senate, the so-called DV lottery would be eliminated (see Section 2303 of the draft bill). Instead, it would be replaced with “merit-based” visas aimed at opening U.S doors to higher-skilled workers, particularly in the science, technology and engineering fields. text/html http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/amnesty-bigotry-article-1.1338723 NewYorkDailyNews, May 9. OPINION. The bias that laced a conservative think tank’s argument against immigration reform was deeper than anyone could have imagined. One of its co-authors has been revealed as a man who believes Hispanics as a group have lower IQs than whites. Incredibly, Jason Richwine advanced this ugliness in a doctoral thesis written at Harvard. So much for brains. “The average IQ of immigrants in the United States is substantially lower than that of the white native population, and the difference is likely to persist over several generations,” he wrote. “The consequences are a lack of socioeconomic assimilation among low-IQ immigrant groups, more underclass behavior, less social trust and an increase in the proportion of unskilled workers in the American labor market.” He also asserted: “No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against.” text/html http://www.examiner.com/article/what-we-know-about-the-2013-green-card-lottery-dv-2015 Examiner.com, May 8. In a recent article in this column, there was some question whether the Senate’s immigration reform bill, the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act” would, as written, terminate the green card lottery beginning in 2013 or 2014. The fact is: if it passes with no modification (and that’s a big if) then last year’s 2012 lottery was the final diversity visa draw. Page 275, Section 2303 of the bill states: An alien who receives a notification from the Secretary that the alien was selected to receive a diversity immigrant visa under 21 section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1153(c)) for fiscal year 2013 or fiscal year 2014 shall remain eligible to receive such visa under the rules of such section, as in effect on September 30, 2014. text/html http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/6-3-trillion-hit-job-article-1.1337658 NewYorkDailyNews, May 8. OPINION. A conservative think tank has set out to torpedo immigration reform by publishing a study that puts an enormous price tag on granting a path to citizenship to America’s 11 million undocumented residents. The report is transparently aimed at sinking the delicately balanced comprehensive reform proposal advanced in the Senate by the so-called Gang of Eight. It must be refuted or, better, ignored. Robert Rector and Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation grabbed headlines by presenting the very scary number of $6.3 trillion as the supposed public expense of what they describe as amnesty. Their distortions are breathtaking. To reach the number, Rector and Richwine purport to total up the cost of the services the undocumented-turned-documented immigrants would use and compare the figure with taxes they project the immigrants would pay. Since those taxes would not cover the services, as calculated, Rector and Richwine brand each immigrant and the children of each immigrant dead weights — and multiply by 50 to pump things up to $6.3 trillion over the next half-century. text/html http://immigrationimpact.com/2013/05/06/new-heritage-report-ignores-broad-consensus-on-economic-benefits-of-reform/ ImmigrationImpact, May 6. OPINION. Today, the Heritage Foundation released a report that attempts to assess the fiscal costs associated with legalizing the 11 million unauthorized individuals living in the United States. The new report is similar to a 2007 study, which was widely criticized at the time of publication and continues to be refuted today by conservatives like Republican budget hawk Paul Ryan, former head of the Congressional Budget Office under President Bush,Douglas Holtz-Eaken, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist and the libertarian Cato Institute. In addition, the Bi-Partisan Policy Institute’s Immigration Task Force (which includes Condoleeza Rice and Haley Barbour) remarked on the report after its release noting, “we strongly believe that this study’s modeling and assumptions are fundamentally flawed because they do not account for the many contributions that an appropriately reformed immigration system can afford our economy and our country.” text/html http://www.examiner.com/article/dv-2014-entrants-green-card-lottery-entrant-status-check-begins-may-1-2013 Examiner.com, May 1. Beginning Wednesday May 1, entrants from the 2012 diversity visa (green card) lottery can check on-line at the U.S. State Department’s “Electronic Diversity Visa” Entrant Status Check (ESC) web site to see if they won. Applicants need three pieces of information from their green card lottery application: CONFIRMATION NUMBER, FAMILY NAME (Last Name), and BIRTH YEAR. Entrant Status Checking will be available from May 1, 2013 until April 30, 2014. The confirmation number was provided if you successfully entered the lottery (“DV-2014”) last fall. It is the 16-character number, similar to this: 2014lO0DZWY1DOV9. text/html http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/immigrants-safe-cities-article-1.1328639 NYDailyNews.com, May 4. OPINION. In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing and the hunt for the Tsarnaev brothers, libertarian Sen. Rand Paul sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid demanding hearings into the “specific failures of our immigration system,” wondering, “Why did the current system allow two individuals to immigrate to the United States from the Chechen Republic in Russia, an area known as a hotbed of Islamic extremism, who then committed acts of terrorism?” It was inevitable that the bombing would spark a backlash against immigration. Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, who made his reputation with alarmism about anchor-baby terrorists, connected the Boston bombing to both Arabs and Hispanics: “We know that Al Qaeda has camps over with the drug cartels on the other side of the Mexican border,” he said. text/html http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/customs_bombings_ramp_up_checks_Tck4brqsD8CC5F2ffxXxEI NYPost.com, May 3. Customs officials are being ordered "effective immediately" to verify that every foreign student arriving in the U.S. has a valid student visa. It's the first security change by the U.S. government directly related to the Boston bombings. According to an internal memorandum obtained by The Associated Press, the Homeland Security Department says every international student holding a non-immigrant student visa must have their status verified before being allowed into the U.S. The order came one day after the Obama administration acknowledged that a student from Kazakhstan accused of hiding evidence for one of the Boston bombing suspects was allowed to return to the U.S. in January without a valid student visa. Azamat Tazhayakov's (AHZ'-maht tuh-ZAYE'-uh-kov) terminated visa status was in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, called SEVIS. text/html http://immigrationimpact.com/2013/05/03/keeping-u-s-high-skilled-temporary-worker-visa-programs-workable/ ImmigrationImpact.com, May 3. When analyzing higher-skilled guest worker visa programs, such as the H-1B and L-1 programs, critics often fail to acknowledge the very different and important purposes that these programs were designed to serve, and the complicated requirements already in place to protect against abuse or exploitation. There is no denying that we can and should improve these programs and the strategies used to enforce them. However, given the well-established economic benefits of these programs, and the challenges employers face finding highly skilled workers, particularly in technical fields, it is essential that any proposed reforms not impose restrictions that may make these programs completely unworkable. The current H-1B visa program is designed to provide companies with an efficient mechanism to hire skilled professionals that complement the U.S. workforce and enhance economic competitiveness. The program includes a host of restrictions and gives the government broad enforcement authority to guard against abuse. text/html http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/Politics/immigration-reform-word-amnesty/story?id=19101841#.UYWEPbWG3OE abcnews.com, May 3. The last large-scale legalization of undocumented immigrants, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), is often called "the 1986 amnesty." The law created a relatively straightforward pathway to citizenship, and 2.7 million undocumented immigrants eventually got green cards through the program. But amnesty in the context of immigration is more than a way to describe legalization. It's become a dirty word in the debate -- immigration's equivalent of Obamacare. That's no accident. Since 1986, restrictionist groups have hammered home the message that the last legalization program didn't stop illegal immigration, and that the "amnesty" failed. That's carried over to the conversation around the current immigration reform bill, which would create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. However, the pathway to citizenship in this bill is nothing like the one in 1986. Undocumented immigrants need to wait 10 years before they can apply to become legal permanent residents, essentially keeping them on probation until then.