A New Immigration Bill?

Recently, on my handy-dandy iPhone, my New York Times app has had practically no rest. Every time I check my iPhone to see if I had any text messages or any missed phone calls, I only saw the notifications from the NY Times, with headlines about the Supreme Court, affirmative action, gay rights, etc. But, out of all these headlines, one that caught by eyes dealt with how an immigration bill passed the senate.

Why did this headline intrigue me the most?

While living in the United States, I saw unlimited attempts by many Congress members, who attempted to solve the problematic immigration issue that continues in the States. From my recollection, I still remember the crying faces of immigrant children on my television screen, sobbing at the news that an immigration bill — which gave hope to the thousands of students living in US illegally — failed to receive enough votes to come into action.

With these memories embedded in my min, I was shocked to read that this new immigration bill was a little different. It went through a lot of debate and many many revisions, which included the increased spending used toward strengthening the US borders.  

It passed the Senate with a 68-32 vote, which were gathered from the huge efforts of the Gang of Eight, the bipartisan group in the Senate who were the main advocates of this bill.

To give a quick summary of the Senate's bill, it offers a way for illegal immigrants, who came to the US before December 31st of 2011, to gain citizenship. It would be a gradual process that would take about 13 years to attain citizenship.

13 years is very long...but, I guess anything is better than nothing, right?

Now, the question is: What will the House do?

Known to be very conservative, this bill might face strong opposition but, due to the strengthening of the borders, I feel that this bill might actually have a chance. Even 14 Republican Senators voted for this bill, giving me more hope that this might actually pass the House of Representatives.

One of my favorite parts was Senator Rubio's speech, with insights on his family's history as immigrants from Cuba. As a Republican Senator from Florida, I was very impressed to see his huge support for the immigration reform.

I'm very excited to see what will happen in the House and to see if this can actually be passed. This bill will have such a huge impact on the immigrants who went to the US for a better future, a dream that they will have a hard time seeing without this bill.

Let's all pray and wait for the House to make its decision.