America’s 12 million illegal immigrants have the support of Obama

A comprehensive reform to the immigration rules of the US is on the cards, thus offering millions of illegal immigrants some hope. But with it, rise of backlash from the conservatives is expected, who are worried about the loss of US jobs.

An estimated twelve million illegal immigrants live in the US, most of them being from Mexico and other parts of Latin America. These illegal immigrants are the major reason behind the biggest influx into the US from the early part of the 20th century and are among the poorest living in the US, fearful to instant arrest by immigration officials and prone to exploitation by immoral employers.

Groups who aren’t in support of the reform said that it was complete madness for Obama to even offer illegal migrants a way to acquire citizenship, especially at a time when even the Americans are finding it extremely tough to get jobs in the US.

Obama will gather lawmakers after his speech and along with them he will work on the details of a bill which he intends to introduce this autumn. Deputy assistant of Obama, Cecilia Menoz, said that Obama is in mood to begin the debate this year.

Obama argued during his campaign trail that it is not possible to suddenly send some twelve million illegal immigrants out of America. He said last month in a meeting in southern California that if these immigrants continue to live in shadows, certain employers will continue to exploit them, which will hurt wages and work conditions of all workers in America in general.

Thus, he planned a path that would make these illegal immigrants legal citizens of the US and the path is simple- get proper knowledge of English, pay significant fine and file application for citizenship. And he said in a Spanish-language radio show this February that he is determined to make all this happen as well.

Even president George Bush made an attempt to reform the immigration laws two years ago but a bipartisan bill failed to get through in Congress following a public backlash.

There was advice from within the White House that the domestic and foreign policy programs of Obama are too large without counting on immigration, but Obama didn’t honored the advice.

Obama had to face personal humiliation on the issue of illegal immigration as his aunt from Kenya, Zeituni Onyango, has been living since 2000 in the US, though her asylum claim was rejected in 2004.