How Immigration Laws Are Made

Immigration law refers to the policies that are established by a government of a country that can help control and regulate the occurrence of immigration in the said country. Immigration law may also be related to a country's nationality law which sets the legal status of persons with regards to citizenship. Immigration laws may vary from country to country and may be changed from time to time depending on the current conditions happening in a certain country at any point in time.

Immigration law goes to a process before it gets accepted as a new regulation. Different countries may allow different processes in drafting legislation pertaining to immigration and making it into law. In the US, such legislation can be introduced by a member of Congress. The member of congress may be able to introduce four types of legislation: bills, joint resolutions, simple resolutions and concurrent resolutions. Each legislation introduced goes into a certain process before it ever becomes law.

First, a legislation introduced is initially labeled or numbered according to which part of Congress it came from. The legislation is then referred to a committee and the legislation document is printed. The committee where the legislation is referred to is then examined or otherwise referred to a subcommittee. If the said committee doesn't do anything with the motion, then the legislation may be scrapped.

But if the motion is taken by a subcommittee for review, public hearings are held regarding the legislation. These hearings usually include experts in the field, the members of the executive, the proponents as well as the opponents of the said legislation. Debates and discussions are held to study the merits and drawbacks of the said legislation. After the said hearings, the subcommittee may add some amendments into the original legislation before it sends it back to the full committee. It the subcommittee decides not to pass on the motion through voting, the legislation dies.

Once the legislation moves to the committee, further hearings are held which may include votes on the proposed changes. It may then be referred to the House or the Senate. The committee then prepares a report on the motion which includes the objective of the new legislation as well as it effects on existing laws. The report may also include the position of the members of the committee as well as of the executive branch.

The motion for the new legislation is then scheduled on the calendar of the House or Senate. It then goes through a series of debates on the floor supervised by the majority leader or the House Speaker. There are certain rules that govern the debate of the motion on the floor.

After the debate over the motion is done, the members of the Congress then vote to either pass the new legislation or to scrap it. When the motion is passed on one chamber, it is then sent to the other chamber where the motion goes through the same process until it is voted upon for acceptance or rejection. In cases where significant changes or amendments are made into the original motion, a conference committee is created in order to iron out the differences between the House and Senate versions of the motion. If the committee can't come up with an agreement, the motion may likely die.

Once the motion has been approved by both the Senate and the House, the legislation is then sent to the Office of the President. For it to become law, the President can sign it or take no action on it for a period of ten days while the Congress is still in session. The President can also decide to veto and reject the legislation. But the Congress may still have the ability to override the President's veto by having at least two thirds of the Congress members going against it.