Recently on cnn.com and other news channels, we are finally hearing about the topic of US immigration reform. Now that President Obama’s health care push is finally completed, the issue of immigration reform is back on the spotlight. This change became noticeable especially on June 1, 2010 when President Obama gave a speech requesting that Congress pass an immigration reform bill to avoid the alternative of other states passing immigration bills like Arizona’s immigration bill.
This new focus on immigration reform is exciting, but I am of course a little skeptical about how long the process could take before an actual law is enacted. One hopeful sign is that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has joined the push for immigration reform.
Now if you are thinking, big deal, that is just one mayor out of 50, think again.
Mayor Bloomberg is not just an ordinary mayor. He is independently wealthy due to a company that he owns, called Bloomberg LP, which is a financial data leasing company. In fact, Bloomberg LP is so successful in the financial world, that Mayor Bloomberg has been noted to be worth in the Billions and one of the richest men in the US. He in fact takes a whopping salary of $1.00 USD (that is right – one dollar!) as his salary for being New York’s mayor, because he simply does not need the money.
So it is quite natural that due to his strong financial background, Mayor Bloomberg is approaching selling immigration reform by presenting the great financial increase immigration reform will bring to the US. Mayor Bloomberg even called our current immigration system as “national suicide,” because the US is pushing away financial investors and entrepreneurs while other countries are welcoming these individuals and welcoming their investments.
Mayor Bloomberg of New York has even helped to create a partnership of other Mayors and business leaders to make the economic case for reform, including Mayors of San Antonia, Phoenix, Los Angeles and also top executives of big companies like Boeing, New York Mets, Hewlett-Packard and Walt Disney. We will keep our fingers crossed…
For additional information on Mayor Bloomberg’s plan for reform, please refer to
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/24/rupert-murdoch-mayor-bloo_n_623805.html.