The Immigration Affects All Americans - 2272 Words

Immigration Affects all Americans Heather Long Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College Summer 2015 Immigration Affects all Americans With an election year just a year away, the topic of immigration and how it affects us as a nation will be one of the more controversial and hotly debated subjects. The United States deficit has reached 18 trillion dollars, this has made many question the financial implications of President Obamas executive order on immigration. Social programs are paid for by federal, state, and local governments and policy makers and the public want to know how these programs will be affected by his executive order. Those that defend the order state that the nation only stands to gain on tax revenue that had†¦show more content†¦These taxes were not to discourage immigration, they were set in place to help defer some of the costs the federal government had to pay for immigration officials (Alchin, 2015). It wasn’t until 1996 that President Clinton signed a welfare reform bill that excluded legal immigrants from social programs such as food stamps, w elfare payments, and Supplemental Security Income (Creekmore, 2004). If legal immigrants do not qualify for social programs, what are the issues and debated costs of immigration and of President Obamas executive order? President Obamas’ Executive Order Due to the lack of Congress passing new immigration reform policies, President Obama took the controversial step and signed an executive order to alter the current immigration policy to provide a pathway for undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status and to increase boarder security along with other features. President Obama did not want to pass the executive order, he would have preferred that Congress had acted on their own. When President Obama addressed Congress he stated To those members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better, he said, or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress has failed, I have one answer: Pass a bill. (Facts on File, 2015, Para 11) Congress failed to act, President