Immigration Reform News - Jan. 2013: Congress Set To Begin Debating

Lines in the sand are expected to be drawn in Washington in the battle to reform immigration.

Since the November election, President Obama and top legislators from both the Democratic and Republican sides on Capitol Hill have repeatedly stated that immigration reform would be a top priority going forward.

Recently, the Obama administration has taken a major step in the immigration debate by changing its immigration policy in order to allow certain undocumented immigrants with families in the U.S. an extended stay in the country while applying for citizenship.

Under the provisions, such immigrants would still have to return to their homelands to apply for permanent Visas, but the aim of the legislation was to help lessen the hardships of separation that immigrant families endure.

Immigration has been both a touchy issue and an expensive one.

A report released Monday from the nonpartisan Washington-based Migration Policy Institute found that the U.S. spent roughly $18 billion on immigration enforcement in 2012--a figure that eclipses the collective spending on the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Secret Service, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

More than 4.4 million people have been deported from the U.S. since 1990, the report stated.

Latino voters turned out in record numbers for Obama in the November election, especially in swing states such as Florida and Colorado, which brought the issue to the forefront. Hispanic voters made it clear that they wanted the change promised to immigration that Obama promised in his 2008 campaign, while simultaneously rejecting Republicans, who have largely adopted an anti-immigration stance in recent years, at the polls.

And while Republicans have indicated that they would be more willing to work towards comprehensive reform on immigration, the push for it could get messy.

Chairing the new House Judiciary Committee will be Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., a former immigration attorney who has voiced his opposition towards Democratic proposals for immigration in the past. Among those proposals he opposed was President Obama's deferred deportation program that provided a two-year stay of deportation for qualified young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the new chairman of the subcommittee on immigration and border security, also has a reputation as a hardliner on immigration issues.

But Democrats will also have a say in the matter during the committee hearings.

Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez , D-Ill., announced this week that he will join the House Judiciary Committee, resigning from his third ranking Democrat spot on the House Financial Services Committee in order to tackle immigration reform head-on.

Explaining his decision, Gutierrez, a Puerto Rican descendant, explained the importance for him to tackle such legislation, stating that "passing comprehensive immigration reform is my passion and my commitment to my constituents and immigrants all across our country...I felt I must be on the Judiciary Committee during this Congress to help the others on the Committee get immigration reform to the finish line."