MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexicans are reacting with cautious optimism to the immigration reform bill submitted to the U.S. Senate Wednesday. While it proposes a long wait for U.S. citizenship, it at least gives migrants a stable path.
Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department is welcoming the proposal as “a positive step.”
The bill would allow migrants in the U.S. before 2012 to apply for “registered provisional immigrant status.” That would not allow them federal benefits, but they could at least work safely in the U.S. and visit their homelands.
That is a big issue for many of the millions of Mexican migrants who entered the U.S. illegally and who have been unable to visit relatives in Mexico, in some cases for years, because of fear they would not be able to return to U.S. jobs.
