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Could We Soon See Comprehensive Immigration Reform in the USA?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests we are discussing the possibility of Comprehensive Immigration Reform or CIR as it is often called with respect to the USA.

With Biden coming in as President and there being a razor-thin majority in the sense that it is 50/50 with Kamala Harris being the tiebreaking vote in the Senate and the House being Democrat, it seems logical to infer that we might actually see some real change to US Immigration Law. The real question that has been on the lips of many, especially going back into the Obama Administration, I remember a lot of talk on this during Obama's time in office, of what is called Comprehensive Immigration Reform and the fact is what we are talking about here is basically an overhaul of the INA, the Immigration Nationality Act. The thing to understand is that Act is old. I am not saying that just because a law is old, it doesn't mean it is bad but I would argue that the INA, and I don't want to get into the political side of this, this is just kind of from a legal standpoint and especially from a practitioner's standpoint, I think the INA is truly showing its age because a lot of the categories that were prioritized in the INA; the categories that were not prioritized in the INA; the policies that are sort of manifest in the INA, I really think they are of a different time and it is really time to start thinking about Comprehensive Immigration Reform, really making some fundamental changes to the Immigration System.

The other thing is the Immigration apparatus, as has been evidenced in the final years of the Trump Administration, has unfortunately especially in the administrative side, been subject to a lot of let's call it political meddling which has resulted in the overall system, it is quite cumbersome and I would say to the point of being almost unwieldy with respect to getting a case moved through. These are cases that under the law are valid cases; they need to be processed. If someone is eligible for one of these benefits and they meet the requirements, they don't have legal grounds of inadmissibility, they need to be processed through. That is how Americans due process of law works. Unfortunately in the latter years of the Trump Administration we saw a lot of obfuscation and obstacles being placed in the way of folks being able to process perfectly bona fide cases. 

I am hoping in the coming months and possibly over the course of the next years, we will see Comprehensive Immigration Reform. I think our best chance of seeing it will probably be the first two years of this new Administration because the makeup of the House and Senate will be what they are for that period. I hesitate to get into political speculation but the way American history is borne out, generally speaking you see at least one of the houses flipped from the dominant party in the midterm elections and I think it is probably safe to presume that or I should say logical to presume that will likely happen 2 years out from now. So, if it is going to happen, it should happen in this first 2 years. Frankly I think this Administration would be the one to actually make some real serious reforms to the overall system that are not only there to improve security issues, but also there in my opinion to just get the due process of law back on track.