The former proposed immigration reform included two major issues: border control and immigration amnesty. An announcement that was made by U.S. senators on May 17th, 2007 revealed an agreement on the how to legalize the undocumented workers in the United States and secure the borders. Former President Bush praised the agreement and encouraged lawmakers to approve the measure. The former President also indicated that he was ready to sign an immigration bill which would improve the borders and legalize illegal aliens in the United States. However, the proposed immigration reform was not passed in Congress, ending former President Bush's hopes of making headway on the immigration issue while still in office.

The proposed immigration reform agreement was not an amnesty, but a comprehensive immigration reform bill that could have potentially effected 12 to 20 million (the exact number is unknown) undocumented workers in the United States. A new visa category was proposed, called a Z visa, which would have been issued only to undocumented workers. The purpose of the Z visa was to make sure that all undocumented workers would be assigned a visa category-- allowing them to legally live and work in the United States while their cases are being reviewed.

In order to qualify for the proposed Z visa, applicants would have been required to prove that they arrived in the United States before January 1st, 2007. The Z visa is renewable in four year increments, and it may lead to permanent residency (a Green Card).

The formerly proposed Z visa came with a fine of $5,000 per person, and the stipulation that the individual must return to their home country to legally be admitted into the United States. Families of undocumented workers would only have to send home one person; the head of the family. The time lag between the issuance of the Z visa and the return trip may be as long as two years, which means that the undocumented worker would have been able to legally work in the United States until they must leave the country to stay in compliance with the Z visa rules. However, the amount of years that must be spent out of the country was speculated to have been more than 5 years before the individual could legally return. The amount of Z visas that will be allowed per year is much larger than any other visa program and may be as many as 500,000 per year.

Once an individual has had the background check, been approved, left the country for a number of years and returned legally, he or she would have been able to obtain U.S. residency in 8 to 13 years, according to the proposed legislation. Mexico has by far the largest number of undocumented immigrants in the United States, and their authorities praised this new proposed immigration bill and call it an “important step”.

Additional temporary work programs include a point based system similar to work programs available in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, where individuals can immigrate based upon their skills, education, knowledge of the English language, instead of family ties in the United States. To balance the need for low and high skilled workers, the current H-1B Visa cap is also estimated to rise to 115,000 visas per year from the current 65,000 visas being offered.

Important: The proposed "Z Visa" was part of the former comprehensive immigration reform bill. However, this bill was not passed by Congress. Subscribe to the free US Immigration Newsletter for the latest immigration reform and amnesty news.