Immigration Reform: Bipartisan Task Force Assembled To Tackle Citizenship Issues

Latinos around the nation can rejoice over the act that some of the nation's most popular politicians will be advising Congress about how to reform the U.S. immigration system. The group that's being created is going to be bipartisan, and it will include several experts on the topic including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"Two Democrats - Henry Cisneros, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Bill Clinton, and Edward G. Rendell, a former governor of Pennsylvania - will join two Republicans - Haley Barbour, a former governor of Pennsylvania, and Condoleezza Rice, President George W. Bush's secretary of state, will lead a new commission with the goal of prodding Congress to act," reported the New York Times report Michael D Shear in a blog post late Monday evening.

The goal of the bipartisan group is to find ways to allow high-tech and low-skilled workers come to the United Sates to work legally. There is also interest in finding an avenue for such workers to obtain permanent residency. Of course, members of the bipartisan group differ on their opinions about how easily people should gain citizenship and exactly what the avenue to citizenship is.

No matter who you ask, the group seems intent on addressing the immigration problem in the United States. A former Bush administration official told Fox News that the U.S. needs "an immigration policy that is humane, we have a lot of people here who are living the shadows."

Similarly, Rice said, "I've seen the best and the brightest from around the world. Most of them would love to stay here, and yet we send them back to enrich other countries."

Although President Barack Obama will give the State of the Union speech on Tuesday, most experts believe that he will not be able to influence the immigration reform debate. Obama has already said that the key focus of his speech will be about creating jobs in America.