American National Govenment - Essay Example

In political realms, immigration reform refers to changes in recurrent immigration policy of a country. Immigration reforms in political sense can involve promoted, open immigration and also eliminated immigration which can also be reduced. The immigration regime existing was designed in 1952 to 1965 with the primary goal of allowing nuclear and extended family reunification and the secondary goals of permitting humanitarian admissions and necessary labor inflows. Today’s reform system differs from the one of decades ago because of changing technology, dwindling costs of beyond border travelling and many years of past migratory flows which have made these flows more complicated and hard to deal with.

Border protection, anti-terrorism and illegal immigration Control Act of 2005 was passed by the House of Representatives. The US senate passed the comprehensive immigration reform act of 2006 but neither bill was made law because their differences could not be resolved in the conference committee. The issues to address in the bills were; to fix border enforcement, enforcement of interior such as doing away with visa overstays, people being prevented from working with no work permit, a committee being created to be in charge of adopting the number of visas available to economic times that fluctuates (Smith & Edmonston, 1997).

A number of changes are recommended in the immigration reforms. First, a change to the temporary admissions and legal permanent systems to encourage the recruitment and retention of the immigrants best able to add value to the United States national interests in immigration. Secondly, Institutional and regulatory structure change governing the integration and employment of immigrants within the US to make sure that immigrants make the largest possible contribution while reducing possible costs of movement.

Others include increase adoption of immigration as foreign policy tool, and changes to the immigration control policies. According to Smith and Edmonston (1997), effective reform must require those living in the US without permission to register, be good pay masters of tax, have knowledge of English, background checks be completed and earn the full rights of a true citizen. Eventually, the country benefits from increased and expanded tax base, a fully functional rule of law, a less vulnerable workforce to exploitation and a level playing field for all workers.

A tough and fair immigration reform will most likely restore order and control at the border. Additionally, I believe immigration reform is preferred because it greatly improves the US GDP by at least 0.84 percent. The increase in GDP due to immigration, in addition to benefiting the citizens throughout the country, will be vital among the labor-intensive sectors such as construction, electronic equipment and textiles industries. Furthermore, comprehensive immigration reforms increases wages for all workers and improves their working conditions.

The Cap-n-Trade legislation (climate change reform) is almost the only way to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. Cap-n-trade is targeted at reducing carbon dioxide emissions at a politically determined level among the users and producers of oil, natural gas and coal. Primarily the legislation seeks to impose a switch among users to alternative, less