US senate passes bill to legalise illegal immigrants

WASHINGTON (CMC):

A bipartisan group of United States senators on Tuesday passed a sweeping immigration bill that seeks to legalise the status of an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, including Caribbean nationals, residing in the United States (US).

The bill is also aimed at reorienting future immigration by bringing Caribbean and other nationals to the US based increasingly on the job skills and personal assets they can offer.

The bill, by four Democrats and four Republicans, is the most ambitious effort in at least 26 years to repair, update and reshape the American immigration system.

But immigration advocates say the part of the bill expected to draw the most controversy is a 13-year pathway to citizenship for immigrants who have been living in the US illegally.

In an effort to make that proposal acceptable to Republicans, who fear it could unleash a new wave of illegal immigration, the senators placed a series of conditions, or triggers, along the pathway, that would require the US Department of Homeland Security to spend as much as US$6.5 billion over 10 years to increase enforcement and extend fencing along the Southwest border.

According to the bill, the border security programmes would have to be fully operational before any immigrant, who had been in the US illegally, would be able to apply for permanency, or green card, the first step toward becoming American citizens.

The bill includes a long list of "disqualifiers" that prevent Caribbean and other immigrants from becoming legal residents if they have any felony convictions or at least three misdemeanour convictions.