On June 25, President Obama sat down with a cross section lawmakers from Capitol Hill to discuss comprehensive immigration reform.聽 The goal of the meeting was to discuss ideas, gauge the interest of Congress on tackling this issue again and to talk about possible timelines for action. This comes the day after a speech by Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, announcing the principles he would like to have in any comprehensive immigration reform bill, including:
- Curtailing illegal immigration,
- Control of the borders,
- Bio-metric based employer verification system,
- Registration of illegal aliens currently in the U.S. to begin the process of converting to legal status,
- Family reunification,
- Encouragement of bringing highly skilled immigrants to the U.S., and
- More managed flow of those lower skilled coming into the country.