Immigration Reform News 2013: Senate Bill Seeks to Streamline Paths to Citizenship

The Senate's immigration reform bill will be introduced tomorrow, and hopes are high that it will clarify and streamline the naturalization process for millions of hopeful immigrants, as well as create an entirely new path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country.

As it stands now, the current immigration situation is a mess. Results and requirements vary depending on country of origin, family ties, financial resources, access to legal representation, language skills, employability, the whims of several government agencies and just plain luck.

Some immigrants, particularly from countries with openly anti-American regimes, have an easier time navigating the complex system, and sometimes they are shepherded through the labyrinth by good-hearted Samaritans or bureaucrats looking to score political points.

Asylum is easier to receive when applying from a country like Cuba or Iran. But refugees from other countries with equally harsh or authoritarian governments that are not actively hostile to the United States tend to fare far worse in convincing the feds they need asylum.

The United States has quotas on refugees, and some are turned away simply because too many others have already come from the same country.

Yet the quotas for all countries have not changed since 1990, and they reflect the realities of two and a half decades past, not an interconnected and globalized world far removed from the threat of Communism, now battling economic demons that loom far darker.

For every happy refugee escaping from war-torn strife, there are many other farm workers or migrant laborers fleeing lands in the grip of drug cartels or grinding poverty who are turned away, or rounded up and deported, possibly to a sure death.

For every new American waving the flag at a brightly-lit naturalization service, many others languish in the shadows of society, unable to travel or report crimes without fear of losing their livelihood.

This new bill aims to right some of the injustices of the system. Hopefully it will be a good start.