Immigration
Reid calls "immigration reform" one of his top priorities for the 110th Congress. He supports the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 (S. 1348), (" would have provided legal status and a path to citizenship for the approximately 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States.") but pulled it from the Senate floor because he believed too many amendments to the legislation were being introduced.
Reid supports the DREAM Act which would make it easier for young people who are not citizens of the United States, but are permanent residents, to attend college or university in the United States. The DREAM Act was introduced to the Senate by Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Richard Durbin (D-IL)
Reid opposed a Constitutional amendment to make English the national language of the United States, calling the proposal "racist."
Reid's positions on immigration have changed considerably over a relatively short period of time. Only fifteen years ago his position was in favor of sharply reducing legal immigration and of not amnestying undocumented entrants and overstays.
Read more about this topic: Political Positions Of Harry Reid
Famous quotes containing the word immigration:
“America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“The admission of Oriental immigrants who cannot be amalgamated with our people has been made the subject either of prohibitory clauses in our treaties and statutes or of strict administrative regulations secured by diplomatic negotiations. I sincerely hope that we may continue to minimize the evils likely to arise from such immigration without unnecessary friction and by mutual concessions between self-respecting governments.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“I was interested to see how a pioneer lived on this side of the country. His life is in some respects more adventurous than that of his brother in the West; for he contends with winter as well as the wilderness, and there is a greater interval of time at least between him and the army which is to follow. Here immigration is a tide which may ebb when it has swept away the pines; there it is not a tide, but an inundation, and roads and other improvements come steadily rushing after.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)