When President Barack Obama addressed the nation, during his 2013 State of the Union speech, he made it extremely clear the economy, and the more than 11 million illegal immigrants currently living and working in the United States, would greatly benefit from a complete immigration overhaul. In fact, he laid out three vital issues he felt must be resolved before true immigration reform could take place: a) improve border security and crack down on businesses who knowingly hire illegal, undocumented workers, b) create a clear path by which the millions of illegal immigrants, who are presently residing in the states, can become legal U.S. citizens, and c) improve overall efficiency on the entire immigration system. To facilitate the overhaul, the President then asked legislators to immediately join forces and create a comprehensive immigration reform bill which could be signed into law.

As past efforts to reform immigration had failed, a bipartisan group, consisting of four Republican senators and four Democratic senators, was created to tackle the difficult and highly-contested immigration reform matter. These eight senators have since become known as the “Gang of Eight”. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla), Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill), Sen. Robert Menedez (D-N.J.), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo) are the eight senators responsible for bringing immigration reform to the table. Despite arguments, contentions and disagreements with various aspects of the proposed bill, there is now a comprehensive, bi-partisan bill that is capable of making some of the major, wide ranging immigration reform our country needs.

If you need legal assistance with an immigration matter, or you want to find out how the new immigration reform bill could affect you and your loved ones, we recommend you contact The Immigration Law Office of Los Angeles, P.C. to speak with an experienced Los Angeles immigration attorney today.