Press. voanews.com
Hillary Clinton
and Donald Trump have very different plans for immigration policy in the United
States if elected president in November, including proposals that in some cases
are directly opposite of each other.
Their campaign
pledges range from ones emphasizing enforcement of existing laws to those
requiring new legislation and possibly changes to the U.S. Constitution. Trump
is due to make a major speech on the issue in Arizona on Wednesday.
One of the most
glaring questions is what to do about the estimated 11 million people already
living in the country illegally.There is currently very little that population
can do to earn citizenship. Clinton says one of her first priorities is
immigration reform that would include creating a path to full citizenship,
which Trump does not support.
An early Trump
priority would be immediately deporting those undocumented immigrants who have
committed crimes.Clinton also says she would prioritize kicking out violent
criminals. Both largely follow existing policies under President Barack
Obama's administration.
A 2014 memo from
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson identifies top immigration enforcement
targets as people suspected of terrorism or espionage, trying to illegally
enter the country, and those convicted of gang or felony crimes. People already
in the country who have not committed crimes or significant visa program abuses
are in the lowest tier.
Two Obama
executive orders
Obama signed two
executive orders on immigration during his term, one allowing parents of
citizens or lawful residents to apply for a delay in facing immigration
enforcement and another allowing children who entered the country before age 16
to ask for the same delay. A federal court order suspended the one regarding
parents, but the protection for those who entered illegally as children is
still in effect.
FILE -
Pro-immigration demonstrators protest the immigration stance of Republican
presidential nominee Donald Trump, in Public Square in Cleveland, July 20,
2016. The convention ends Thursday night. FILE - Pro-immigration demonstrators
protest the immigration stance of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump,
in Public Square in Cleveland, July 20, 2016. The convention ends Thursday night.
Clinton wants to protect both measures.Trump told NBC's Meet The Press in an
August 2015 interview that he would repeal them and "make a whole new set
of standards."
Trump wants
change
Under current
law, any child born in the United States, even to someone who is in the country
illegally, is a citizen.
"All
persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State
wherein they reside," reads the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Trump
wants to end that policy, calling it the "biggest magnet for illegal
immigration."Clinton has said that would be the "wrong
direction."
Citizenship
brings certain rights such as voting and being eligible to buy health insurance
through exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act. Clinton has proposed
expanding healthcare access to families regardless of their immigration status.
Trump wants a
focus on enforcing U.S. law that makes it illegal for companies to hire people
they know are in the country illegally.Several states require the use of a
system called e-verify that matches documents submitted by job applicants to
federal government databases to ensure people are legally allowed to work.
Trump wants
e-verify used nationwide to not only "protect jobs for unemployed
Americans" but also prevent undocumented people from accessing government
benefit programs.
Visitors stay
after visa expires
In June, the
Department of Homeland security reported that about 355,000 people who had
entered the country legally with a visa and never left. Officials told a
congressional hearing that enforcement for visa overstays is similar to the
overall approach on policing immigration with a focus on those who pose the
greatest threat to national security and local populations.
Since 1994,
Congress has called for a system to better track who comes in and out of the
country and allow law enforcement to better search out those who overstay their
visa. Homeland Security says it does a good job for sea and air travelers, and
is working on better tracking those who exit the United States through land
crossings.
Trump wants a
robust tracking system as well as criminal penalties for people who do not
leave when their visa expires. Right now, there are only civil penalties that
generally bar a violator from returning to the U.S. for a certain number of
years depending on how long they overstay.
Current law also
stipulates that undocumented children or spouses of citizens or permanent
residents who get approved for immigrant visas must leave the country to obtain
the visas at a consulate abroad, and must then wait either three or 10 years to
return depending on how long they were in the U.S. illegally.
Clinton wants
those waits lifted, saying they force families to choose between continuing to
live together illegally in the U.S. or splitting up for a period of time. Parties have
different ideas of the importance of the immigration issue
A number of
recent polls showed about 8 percent of registered voters considered immigration
the issue most important to them, more of them Republicans than Democrats. That
divide also appeared in a Pew Research poll that asked people whether
immigration is a "very big problem" in the United States. Sixty-six
percent of Trump supporters said yes compared to 17 percent of Clinton
supporters.
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