A bill that will introduce brand new rules for immigrants to the United States that could allow them to receive citizenship has been approved by a Senate panel, thus clearing the way for a full debate over it to be held by US congressman, with the members of the panel voting 13-5 in favor of the new bill.
A full discussion of the proposal, which is the most comprehensive attempt to reform the immigration policy of the United States in the last quarter of a century, is now expected to take place in June. A similar attempt made six years ago, back in the June of 2007, met with failure.
The panel was congratulated by US President Barack Obama, who said that the proposal was “largely consistent with the principles of common sense reform I have proposed and meets the challenge of fixing our broken immigration system.” The bill was passed following the agreement by committee members to a move by the Republicans to ease restrictions on US visas to allow for the hiring of skilled workers from nations such as India and China and after the withdrawal of an attempt to enable people to sponsor foreign same-sex partners for permanent legal status.
If US lawmakers do embrace the proposed legislation, it will give the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States the opportunity to get “registered provisional immigrant status,” and if certain conditions are met will one day make them eligible to put in a green card application.