The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
January 29, 2013
FACT SHEET: Fixing our Broken Immigration System so
Everyone Plays by the Rules
Americafs immigration system is broken. Too many employers game the system by
hiring undocumented workers and there are 11 million people living in the
shadows. Neither is good for the economy or the country.
It is time to act to fix the broken immigration system in a way that
requires responsibility from everyone —both from the workers here illegally and
those who hire them—and guarantees that everyone is playing by the same rules.
President Obamafs commonsense immigration reform proposal has four parts.
First, continue to strengthen our borders. Second, crack down on companies that
hire undocumented workers. Third, hold undocumented immigrants accountable
before they can earn their citizenship; this means requiring undocumented
workers to pay their taxes and a penalty, move to the back of the line, learn
English, and pass background checks. Fourth, streamline the legal immigration
system for families, workers, and employers.
Together we can build a fair, effective and commonsense immigration system
that lives up to our heritage as a nation of laws and a nation of
immigrants.
The key principles the President believes should be included in commonsense
immigration reform are:
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Continuing to Strengthen Border Security: President Obama
has doubled the number of Border Patrol agents since 2004 and today border
security is stronger than it has ever been. But there is more work to
do. The Presidentfs proposal gives law enforcement the tools they need
to make our communities safer from crime. And by enhancing our
infrastructure and technology, the Presidentfs proposal continues to
strengthen our ability to remove criminals and apprehend and prosecute
national security threats.
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Cracking Down on Employers Hiring Undocumented Workers:
Our businesses should only employ people legally authorized to work in the
United States. Businesses that knowingly employ undocumented workers are
exploiting the system to gain an advantage over businesses that play by the
rules. The Presidentfs proposal is designed to stop these unfair hiring
practices and hold these companies accountable. At the same time, this
proposal gives employers who want to play by the rules a reliable way to
verify that their employees are here legally.
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Earned Citizenship: It is just not practical to deport 11
million undocumented immigrants living within our borders. The
Presidentfs proposal provides undocumented immigrants a legal way to earn
citizenship that will encourage them to come out of the shadows so they can
pay their taxes and play by the same rules as everyone else. Immigrants
living here illegally must be held responsible for their actions by passing
national security and criminal background checks, paying taxes and a penalty,
going to the back of the line, and learning English before they can earn their
citizenship. There will be no uncertainty about their ability to become U.S.
citizens if they meet these eligibility criteria. The proposal will also stop
punishing innocent young people brought to the country through no fault of
their own by their parents and give them a chance to earn their citizenship
more quickly if they serve in the military or pursue higher
education.
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Streamlining Legal Immigration: Our immigration
system should reward anyone who is willing to work hard and play by the rules.
For the sake of our economy and our security, legal immigration should
be simple and efficient. The Presidentfs proposal attracts the best
minds to America by providing visas to foreign entrepreneurs looking to start
businesses here and helping the most promising foreign graduate students in
science and math stay in this country after graduation, rather than take their
skills to other countries. The Presidentfs proposal will also reunify
families in a timely and humane manner.
Continuing to Strengthen Border Security
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Strengthen border security and infrastructure. The
Presidentfs proposal strengthens and improves infrastructure at ports of
entry, facilitates public-private partnerships aimed at increasing investment
in foreign visitor processing, and continues supporting the use of
technologies that help to secure the land and maritime borders of the United
States.
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Combat transnational crime. The Presidentfs proposal
creates new criminal penalties dedicated to combating transnational criminal
organizations that traffic in drugs, weapons, and money, and that smuggle
people across the borders. It also expands the scope of current law to
allow for the forfeiture of these organizationsf criminal tools and proceeds.
Through this approach, we will bolster our efforts to deprive criminal
enterprises, including those operating along the Southwest border, of their
infrastructure and profits.
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Improve partnerships with border communities and law
enforcement. The Presidentfs proposal expands our ability to
work with our cross-border law enforcement partners. Community trust and
cooperation are keys to effective law enforcement. To this end, the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will establish border community liaisons
along the Southern and Northern borders to improve communication and
collaboration with border communities, boost funding to tribal government
partners to reduce illegal activity on tribal lands, and strengthen training
on civil rights and civil liberties for DHS immigration officers.
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Crack down on criminal networks engaging in passport and visa fraud
and human smuggling. The Presidentfs proposal creates tough criminal
penalties for trafficking in passports and immigration documents and schemes
to defraud, including those who prey on vulnerable immigrants through notario
fraud. It also strengthens penalties to combat human smuggling rings.
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Deporting Criminals. The Presidentfs proposal expands
smart enforcement efforts that target convicted criminals in federal or state
correctional facilities, allowing us to remove them from the United States at
the end of their sentences without re-entering our communities. At the same
time, it protects those with a credible fear of returning to their home
countries.
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Streamline removal of nonimmigrant national security and public
safety threats. The Presidentfs proposal creates a streamlined
administrative removal process for people who overstay their visas and have
been determined to be threats to national security and public safety.
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Improve our nationfs immigration courts. The
Presidentfs proposal invests in our immigration courts. By increasing the
number of immigration judges and their staff, investing in training for court
personnel, and improving access to legal information for immigrants, these
reforms will improve court efficiency. It allows DHS to better focus its
detention resources on public safety and national security threats by
expanding alternatives to detention and reducing overall detention costs.
It also provides greater protections for those least able to represent
themselves.
Cracking Down on Employers Who Hire Undocumented
Workers
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Mandatory, phased-in electronic employment verification.
The Presidentfs proposal provides tools for employers to ensure a legal
workforce by using federal government databases to verify that the people they
hire are eligible to work in the United States. Penalties for hiring
undocumented workers are significantly increased, and new penalties are
established for committing fraud and identity theft. The new mandatory
program ensures the privacy and confidentiality of all workersf personal
information and includes important procedural protections. Mandatory
electronic employment verification would be phased in over five years with
exemptions for certain small businesses.
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Combat fraud and identity theft. The proposal also
mandates a fraud]resistant, tamper]resistant Social Security card and requires
workers to use fraud]and tamper]resistant documents to prove authorization to
work in the United States. The proposal also seeks to establish a voluntary
pilot program to evaluate new methods to authenticate identity and combat
identity theft.
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Protections for all workers. The Presidentfs proposal
protects workers against retaliation for exercising their labor rights.
It increases the penalties for employers who hire undocumented workers
to skirt the workplace standards that protect all workers. And it
creates a glabor law enforcement fundh to help ensure that industries that
employ significant numbers of immigrant workers comply with labor
laws.
Pathway to Earned Citizenship
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Create a provisional legal status. Undocumented
immigrants must come forward and register, submit biometric data, pass
criminal background and national security checks, and pay fees and penalties
before they will be eligible for a provisional legal status.
Agricultural workers and those who entered the United States as children
would be eligible for the same program. Individuals must wait until the
existing legal immigration backlogs are cleared before getting in line to
apply for lawful permanent residency (i.e. a ggreen cardh), and ultimately
United States citizenship. Consistent with current law, people with
provisional legal status will not be eligible for welfare or other federal
benefits, including subsidies or tax credits under the new health care
law.
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Create strict requirements to qualify for lawful permanent resident
status. Those applying for green cards must pay their taxes,
pass additional criminal background and national security checks, register for
Selective Service (where applicable), pay additional fees and penalties, and
learn English and U.S. civics. As under current law, five years after
receiving a green card, individuals will be eligible to apply for U.S.
citizenship like every other legal permanent resident.
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Earned citizenship for DREAMers. Children brought here
illegally through no fault of their own by their parents will be eligible for
earned citizenship. By going to college or serving honorably in the
Armed Forces for at least two years, these children should be given an
expedited opportunity to earn their citizenship. The Presidentfs
proposal brings these undocumented immigrants out of the shadows.
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Create administrative and judicial review. An individual
whose provisional lawful status has been revoked or denied, or whose
application for adjustment has been denied, will have the opportunity to seek
administrative and judicial review of those decisions.
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Provide new resources to combat fraud. The Presidentfs
proposal authorizes funding to enable DHS, the Department of State, and other
relevant federal agencies to establish fraud prevention programs that will
provide training for adjudicators, allow regular audits of applications to
identify patterns of fraud and abuse, and incorporate other proven fraud
prevention measures.
Streamlining Legal Immigration
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Keep Families Together. The proposal seeks to eliminate
existing backlogs in the family-sponsored immigration system by recapturing
unused visas and temporarily increasing annual visa numbers. The
proposal also raises existing annual country caps from 7 percent to 15 percent
for the family-sponsored immigration system. It also treats same-sex
families as families by giving U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents
the ability to seek a visa on the basis of a permanent relationship with a
same-sex partner. The proposal also revises current unlawful presence bars and
provides broader discretion to waive bars in cases of hardship.
- Cut Red Tape for Employers. The proposal also
eliminates the backlog for employment-sponsored immigration by eliminating
annual country caps and adding additional visas to the system. Outdated
legal immigration programs are reformed to meet current and future demands by
exempting certain categories from annual visa limitations.
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Enhance travel and tourism. The Administration is
committed to increasing U.S. travel and tourism by facilitating legitimate
travel while maintaining our nationfs security. Consistent with the
Presidentfs Executive
Order on travel and tourism, the Presidentfs proposal securely streamlines
visa and foreign visitor processing. It also strengthens law enforcement
cooperation while maintaining the programfs robust counterterrorism and
criminal information sharing initiatives. It facilitates more efficient
travel by allowing greater flexibility to designate countries for
participation in the Visa Waiver Program, which allows citizens of designated
countries to visit the United States without obtaining a visa. And
finally it permits the State Department to waive interview requirements for
certain very low-risk visa applicants, permitting resources to be focused on
higher risk applicants and creates a pilot for premium visa
processing.
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gStapleh green cards to advanced STEM diplomas. The
proposal encourages foreign graduate students educated in the United States to
stay here and contribute to our economy by gstaplingh a green card to the
diplomas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) PhD and
Masterfs Degree graduates from qualified U.S. universities who have found
employment in the United States. It also requires employers to pay a fee
that will support education and training to grow the next generation of
American workers in STEM careers.
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Create a gstartup visah for job-creating entrepreneurs.
The proposal allows foreign entrepreneurs who attract financing from
U.S. investors or revenue from U.S. customers to start and grow their
businesses in the United States, and to remain permanently if their companies
grow further, create jobs for American workers, and strengthen our
economy.
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Expand opportunities for investor visas and U.S. economic
development. The proposal permanently authorizes immigrant visa
opportunities for regional center (pooled investment) programs; provides
incentives for visa requestors to invest in programs that support national
priorities, including economic development in rural and economically depressed
regions ; adds new measures to combat fraud and national security threats;
includes data collection on economic impact; and creates a pilot program for
state and local government officials to promote economic
development.
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Create a new visa category for employees of federal national
security science and technology laboratories. The proposal
creates a new visa category for a limited number of highly-skilled and
specialized immigrants to work in federal science and technology laboratories
on critical national security needs after being in the United States. for two
years and passing rigorous national security and criminal background
checks.
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Better addresses humanitarian concerns. The proposal
streamlines immigration law to better protect vulnerable immigrants, including
those who are victims of crime and domestic violence. It also better
protects those fleeing persecution by eliminating the existing limitations
that prevent qualified individuals from applying for asylum.
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Encourage integration. The proposal promotes earned
citizenship and efforts to integrate immigrants into their new American
communities linguistically, civically, and economically.