Citizenship

Gridlock reigns on the question of immigration reform. After a two-hour meeting on Wednesday to discuss the GOP’s approach on immigration, Republicans rejected the Senate bill and its path to citizenship for the undocumented and indicated it would continue to consider small bills reflecting the priorities of its most conservative members.

The former president spoke today about immigration reform at a naturalization ceremony at his newly minted presidential library in Dallas, but stopped short of offering policy recommendations, saying he didn't want to "get involved in the politics or the specifics of policy".

Democrats from the House of Representatives met on Tuesday with the four Senate Democrats who helped write the Senate’s immigration reform legislation to discuss the party’s strategy in handling the issue. They told reporters afterward that they would not support any major bill that does not include a path to citizenship for the nation’s undocumented.

The House is slated to unveil its own bipartisan, comprehensive take on immigration reform after the July 4th Congressional recess. It will reportedly offer legal status to many of the nation's 11 million undocumented, but it remains to be seen whether it will offer a path to citizenship.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin posted a photo on Friday to her Facebook page attacking GOP members who supported the immigration reform bill which just passed in the Senate. Her opposition to the bill's proposed path of citizenship stands in contrast to her position in 2008, when she told Univision anchor Jorge Ramos that she supported the idea, although she did not favor "total amnesty".

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the opinion of the majority ruling that a 1993 federal voter law "precludes Arizona from requiring a federal form applicant to submit information beyond that required by the form itself."

Undocumented immigrants who arrived to the U.S. before Dec. 31, 2011 and lived there continuously since could apply for provisional legal status.