In the past six months, more and more immigration reform bills have been passed in various states. The most infamous state law is arguably Arizona’s immigration reform bill and, ever since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality in part of Arizona’s immigration bill, other states have followed suit. From Arizona to Georgia, Alabama, and Utah, various states all over the United States are introducing and passing comprehensive immigration bills targeted at reducing the population of undocumented immigrants in their state. According to the National Conference of Legislators, 1,538 bills dealing with immigrants and refugees have been introduced in state legislatures in 2011 alone. This is an all-time high in the United States. It also begs the questions, how does this affect illegal immigrants and why is Congress still silent on comprehensive federal immigration reform?

With the various state immigration laws being pushed through state legislatures, it seems as though what states are really doing is screaming for Congressional action. Some have even posited that states are almost daring Congress to stay silent by enacting the toughest and most comprehensive immigration bills that can be drafted. However, the last immigration reform bill to see the Senate and House of Representatives was The Dream Act. The Dream Act offered a path to legal residence for illegal immigrants brought to the United States at a young age who later went on to attend college in the United States. The Dream Act was approved by the House of Representatives but narrowly missed the vote in the U.S. Senate. Since that time, President Obama and other government representatives have spoken of the need for comprehensive immigration reform but the public has not seen another federal immigration reform bill.

What we have seen is a flurry of states taking the matter into their own hands. In July of 2010, President Obama again reiterated the need for immigration reform in a speech at American University and the need for Republican votes to do so. Republican representatives responded that our current leadership needs to do more to secure the nation’s borders before calling on Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill. The result is a political standoff that has lead to patchwork immigration laws with different rules and consequences depending on where a person resides.

The segment of the population that is arguably affected the most by patchwork state immigration laws are undocumented parents, especially those with children born in the U.S. In a recent Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist came out as an illegal immigrant brought to the U.S. at an early age by his family. He has no qualifying relative to petition to make him a lawful resident but as Mr. Vargas put it, he is “exhausted” and doesn’t want that life anymore.

The future of federal immigration reform is yet to be seen. However, one thing is fairly certain. Until Congress takes action, state legislatures will continue to push through their own immigration reform bills. There are already multiple states in the U.S. with different immigration laws and different consequences for violating those laws. It is unclear when the current political standoff in the federal government will end and make way for a federal solution. However, what is clear is that states are demanding a solution and will continue to create their own until a satisfactory federal solution is offered.

Photo 1:Nevele Osteog, Flickr

Photo 2: Progress Ohio, Flickr