Here is a summary of the CIR (Comprehensive Immigration Reform) proposals.
1. Strengthening Border Security
2. Legal Status In The U.S. For People That Are Undocumented
3. Making it Easy for Highly Skilled Workers to Get Green Cards
4. Penalties for Employers for Hiring Undocumented Workers
What Are Some of the Differences Between the Senate Proposal and the President’s Proposal?
The president specified three major points of immigration reform:
• better enforcement of immigration laws,
• providing a path to citizenship for the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the country, and
• reforming the legal immigration system.
The two proposals are similar but the President’s proposal provided more detail on improving the legal immigration system to make it broader and more inclusive.
The President’s proposal also included some elements that were not in the Senate plan, such as:
• inclusion of court reform,
• judicial review of decisions,
• visas for entrepreneurs; and a
• more expansive definition of families that includes same-sex couples.