Immigration PlanRepublicans were outraged by President Barack Obama’s leaked plan on immigration. Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida declared the plan to be dead on arrival. The senator has been given the task of leading his party with regards to the immigration issue. Rubio said that the president’s plan would leave the borders unsecured and the legal immigration system broken for the next couple of years.

Another Republican senator, Rand Paul of Kentucky, said that Obama’s proposal indicates that the president is not serious about reforming the immigration system. Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin described the president as looking for a partisan advantage and not a bipartisan solution to the problem.

During his re-election bid, President Obama got the support of both Hispanics and Asian Americans. Senator Rubio, who is the son of Cuban immigrants, has been trying to explain to his party the importance of immigration for communities that have fresh memories of arrival in the nation.

Mitt Romney’s idea of immigration reform is some type of self-deportation and it showed hostility instead of empathy. This was why voters picked President Obama instead of Romney.

A bipartisan group of eight senators, headed by Rubio, has been trying to develop a comprehensive immigration reform package that would give some type of legal status for the 11 million migrants who are in the country without papers. Analysts said that there should be a clear path to citizenship for those who came to the US as children. Some also suggest a provisional legal status as well as a path to permanent legal status for those who came as adults.

Security along the border must also be tightened. There must also be some type of guest-worker program for those who come to the country for seasonal employment. Changes must also be made to streamline the legal immigration system, especially for potential entrepreneurs and high-tech workers.