The nation needs a comprehensive immigration plan, and it is clear from a recent poll that most Americans support reforming the U.S.’s immigration system. In a new poll, nearly two-thirds of people surveyed are in favor of a measure that allows undocumented immigrants to earn citizenship over several years, while only 35 percent oppose such a plan. And President Obama is expected to “begin an all-out drive for comprehensive immigration reform, including seeking a path to citizenship” in January.

Several top Republicans have softened their views on immigration reform following November’s election, but in the first push for reform, House Republicans advanced a bill last month that would add visas for highly skilled workers while reducing legal immigration overall. Providing a road map to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. would have sweeping benefits for the nation, especially the economy.

Here are the top 10 reasons why the U.S. needs comprehensive immigration reform:

1. Legalizing the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States would boost the nation’s economy. It would add a cumulative $1.5 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product—the largest measure of economic growth—over 10 years. That’s because immigration reform that puts all workers on a level playing field would create a virtuous cycle in which legal status and labor rights exert upward pressure on the wages of both American and immigrant workers. Higher wages and even better jobs would translate into increased consumer purchasing power, which would benefit the U.S. economy as a whole.

2. Tax revenues would increase. The federal government would accrue $4.5 billion to $5.4 billion in additional net tax revenue over just three years if the 11 million undocumented immigrants were legalized. And states would benefit. Texas, for example, would see a $4.1 billion gain in tax revenue and the creation of 193,000 new jobs if its approximately 1.6 million undocumented immigrants were legalized.

3. Harmful state immigration laws are damaging state economies. States that have passed stringent immigration measures in an effort to curb the number of undocumented immigrants living in the state have hurt some of their key industries, which are held back due to inadequate access to qualified workers. A farmer in Alabama, where the state legislature passed the anti-immigration law HB 56 in 2011, for example, estimated that he lost up to $300,000 in produce in 2011 because the undocumented farmworkers who had skillfully picked tomatoes from his vines in years prior had been forced to flee the state.

4. A path to citizenship would help families access health care. About a quarter of families where at least one parent is an undocumented immigrant are uninsured, but undocumented immigrants do not qualify for coverage under the Affordable Care Act, leaving them dependent on so-called safety net hospitals that will see their funding reduced as health care reforms are implemented. Without being able to apply for legal status and gain health care coverage, the health care options for undocumented immigrants and their families will shrink.

5. U.S. employers need a legalized workforce. Nearly half of agricultural workers, 17 percent of construction workers, and 12 percent of food preparation workers nationwide lacking legal immigration status. But business owners—from farmers to hotel chain owners—benefit from reliable and skilled laborers, and a legalization program would ensure that they have them.
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Lawmakers from both parties have expressed new interest in comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants, after Latino voters overwhelmingly supported President Obama in the presidential election. But the bill introduced on Tuesday by retiring Republican Sens. Jon Kyl (AZ) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX),  dubbed the ACHIEVE Act, is nothing more than a watered-down version of the bipartisan DREAM Act without a clear path to citizenship for those who would qualify under the measure.

Hutchison emphasized that the measure, which would require applicants to apply for three different visa programs over several years, does not offer a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. “It doesn’t allow them to cut in line in front of people who have come and abided by the rules of our laws today,” she said during a press conference. “It doesn’t keep them from applying under the rules today, but it doesn’t give them a special preference.”

Kyl sought to dismiss the necessity of providing immigrants with a path to citizenship by suggesting that they should — unlawfully — marry U.S. citizens for immigration purposes:

KYL: Realistically, young people frequently get married. In this country, the biggest marriage pool are U.S. citizens. A U.S. citizen can petition for a spouse to become a citizen in a very short time…so I don’t think it’s any big secret that a lot of people who might participate in this program are going to have a very quick path to citizenship, if that’s the path they choose.

Watch it here:

The senators admitted during a press conference that it is unlikely they will make much progress on this bill while they are still in the Senate. They said they wanted to begin the process and let other senators take up the effort after the lame duck session. The ACHIEVE Act is reportedly based on Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) working draft of a GOP alternative to the DREAM Act, an idea he floated last summer. So far Rubio is not a co-sponsor of this bill.

The state of Massachusetts will soon allow undocumented immigrants protected under the President’s deferred action program to pay in-state tuition at public universities.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (D) will direct the Board of Higher Education to grant in-state rates to any student who has obtained a work permit, a state official told the Boston Globe over the weekend. This applies to undocumented students who were given relief from the fear of deportation earlier this year, when the President announced a deferred action program to help such young people gain the right to work.

Patrick’s directive will take effect immediately, and will drastically lower the cost of higher education for young immigrant students:

Patrick’s announcement dramatically slashes the cost of a college education for immigrants who until now had to pay out-of-state rates.

For example, the flagship University of Massachusetts Amherst costs $26,645 this year for nonresidents, compared with $13,230 for residents, while Bunker Hill Community College costs $5,640 this year for residents, compared with $13,880 for nonresidents. And Framingham State costs $8,080 for residents this year, compared with $14,160 for nonresidents.

In the past, paying for college was exceptionally hard for undocumented students, since they were ineligible for federal student loans or programs such as Pell grants. In some states, that is likely to continue: While there are 12 states that allow undocumented students to pay an in-state rate, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, and Indiana have laws that specify such immigrants are not allowed to pay an in-state rate.

Following a presidential election in which Latino voters overwhelmingly voted to re-elect President Obama, lawmakers have had a renewed interest in reaching a comprehensive immigration plan. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said he is “confident that the president, myself, others can find the common ground to take care of this issue once and for all,” and even conservative radio host Sean Hannity said he now supports a “pathway to citizenship.”

The Daily Caller published early details of the GOP’s proposal: the ACHIEVE Act, a GOP-backed alternative to the DREAM Act that Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) office says is based on “a working draft of what Sen. Rubio began working on over the summer.” Rubio had floated the idea of a Republican alternative to the DREAM Act last spring but dropped his plan after Obama announced his directive to provide deportation deferrals for young undocumented immigrants.

The ACHIEVE Act that is reportedly being floated by congressional Republicans is little more than a watered-down version of the 10-year-old DREAM Act without a clear path to citizenship:

Essentially, the proposal involves several tiers: W-1 visa status would allow an immigrant to attend college or serve in the military (they have six years to get a degree). After doing so, they would be eligible to apply for a four-year nonimmigrant work visa (also can be used for graduate degrees.)

Next, applicants would be eligible to apply for a permanent visa (no welfare benefits.) Finally, after a set number of years, citizenship “could follow…”

This complicated measure would add several more hoops that undocumented immigrants would have to jump through before they could possibly qualify for citizenship in an undetermined number of years rather than providing a straightforward plan to help the largest number of DREAMers. Each year, about 65,000 undocumented immigrants graduate from high school in the U.S. with uncertain futures because of their legal status, and Rubio’s proposal would do little to offer them certainty.

Even though Rubio said Thursday that he thinks Congress first should pass some version of the DREAM Act to help young undocumented immigrants who want to go to college or serve in the military before considering comprehensive, a wide majority of Americans say they want Congress to come up with an immigration reform plan that includes a clear path to citizenship. The ACHIEVE Act would not accomplish this.

Instead of debating weaker versions of the DREAM Act that would limit the number of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., Republicans would support the original bipartisan DREAM Act plan if they were serious about offering a path to citizenship for undocumented students. The immigration measure could add $329 billion and 1.4 million jobs to the U.S. economy by 2030.

But even better than the DREAM Act, though, would be for Congress to craft an immigration reform measure that would offer a path to citizenship that includes all undocumented immigrants, not a small portion of the population.

When Democrats tried to get the DREAM Act and a path to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants through Congress in 2010, Republicans blocked the immigration reform measure in the Senate. But after a campaign in which GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney staked out harsh anti-immigration positions, and with President Obama winning 75 percent of Latino voters, several key leaders in the Republican party are coming out in favor of immigration reform:

• House Speaker John Boehner (OH): Saying the issue has been around for far too long, Boehner said in an ABC interview that “I’m confident that the president, myself, others can find the common ground to take care of this issue once and for all.”
• Former Gov. Haley Barbour (MS): Haley argued on the “Today” show that Republicans need to be in favor of good policy. “And good policy on immigration in the United States is, we are in a global battle for capital and labor, and we need to have what is good economic policy for America on immigration because we do need labor,” he said. “We not only need Ph.Ds in science and technology, we need skilled workers and we need unskilled workers. And we need to have an immigration policy that is good economic policy, and then — and then the politics will take care of itself.”
• Radio host Sean Hannity: On his radio show Thursday, Hannity told his listeners that he has “evolved” on immigration policy and now supports a “pathway to citizenship.” The problem can’t go on, he added. “It’s simple to me to fix it,” Hannity said. “I think you control the border first. You create a pathway for those people that are here — you don’t say you’ve got to go home. And that is a position that I’ve evolved on. Because, you know what, it’s got to be resolved. The majority of people here, if some people have criminal records you can send them home, but if people are here, law-abiding, participating for years, their kids are born here, you know, first secure the border, pathway to citizenship, done.”

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), who is running for the chairmanship of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told Politico that Republicans will have to change how they reach out to Latino voters. “In some fashion, the way we have dealt with immigration gives us a black eye. And we need to figure out how to talk about issues and pursue policies that matter to Latino, Hispanic voters,” he said. And that’s clear from the exit poll results. Among Latino voters, immigration was the second most important issue behind jobs. Sixty percent of Latinos in the U.S. know someone who is an undocumented immigrant, and 90 percent are within two generations of immigrating to the U.S. After Romney spent most of his campaign embracing harmful immigration policies, most Latino voters reported that they thought Romney was “hostile toward Latinos,” while 66 percent said they believe Obama “truly cares about Latinos.”

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Senate Immigration, Refugees and Border Security Subcommittee, described it as a “breakthrough” that Boehner is willing to work on immigration reform, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) has vowed to pass an immigration law. But other GOP congressional members have been resistant to reform in the past — House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) previously has promised to not hold a hearing on the DREAM Act — so it has yet to be seen if more Republicans will come around on immigration reform as well.

While the major story of Tuesday’s elections was, of course, the historic re-election of President Barack Barack Obama, some big progressive victories on many of the 174 statewide questions on the ballot will also have a potentially huge impact on the nation’s public policy.

Here are some of the most important victories:

1. Immigration: Unofficial numbers show Marylanders endorsed Question 4, a state DREAM Act, passed by the legislature, by more than a 16 point margin. The law will now allow eligible undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition at state universities.

2. Marriage equality: The anti-LGBT National Organization for Marriage has lost its principal talking point and can no longer claim that every time voters considered marriage equality, equality loses. Voters in Maryland passed Question 6. Voters in Maine enacted Question 1. Early results suggest that Washington State voters likely backed Referendum 74. All three states will now provide marriage equality for same-sex couples, joining Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont. Minnesotans also rejected a proposed marriage inequality amendment Amendment 1. While the Minnesota result will not automatically grant marriage equality, it sends a strong message to the state’s new Democratic majority in the state legislature.

3. Marijuana: Both Colorado’s Amendment 64 and Washington’s Initiative 502 passed. The measures will legalize and regulate sales of small quantities of marijuana to residents 21 years and older under those states’ laws — though federal law still prohibits it. Massachusetts voted overwhelmingly in support of a new medical marijuana law, Question 3.

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Each day, about 3,000 young undocumented immigrants are applying for deferred action, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano explained last week. As of October 10, that added up to almost 180,000 eligible youth who were applying for temporary deportation deferrals since the policy, which President Obama announced in June, went into effect on August 15, and Napolitano said the number of applications is up to 200,000.

So far, about 4,500 undocumented immigrants have completed the process and received temporary work permits thanks to Obama’s directive, and more than 150,000 have been scheduled for biometric interviews. But it is a long, slow process that can take up to four to six months. Here’s what the process looks like:

With about 950,000 people eligible to apply immediately, almost 19 percent of applications have been received and accepted for processing by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the first two months of DACA. The last time that this many undocumented immigrants could apply for deportation deferrals was in 1986, when then-President Ronald Reagan authorized the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), a successful program that was able to legalize a large number of undocumented immigrants who were eligible in a short time period. Even with its success, only about 13 percent of potential IRCA applicants had filed their paperwork in the first three months of the program, fewer than the first two months’ worth of deferred action applications.

But if Mitt Romney is elected, the entire process for deferred action would stop. While the Republican presidential candidate has said he would not take away the temporary deportation deferrals from any undocumented immigrant who had already been approved, Romney said he would end the program to grant deportation deferrals to young undocumented immigrants who qualify. Some DREAMers say they are concerned about applying for a program that could disappear depending on who wins the presidential race on November 6.

With 950,000 potential applicants and a wait time for applications to be processed that can lasts for months — on top of the amount of time it takes for undocumented immigrants to gather the right documents and fill out the paperwork — it’s likely that tens of thousands of these young adults will still be in limbo by January when the next president is inaugurated. And if it’s Romney, it will be the end of a program that could give up to 1.7 million young undocumented immigrants temporary legal status while lawmakers continue to discuss a long-term immigration solution.

ThinkProgress blogger Adam Peck and Patrick Oakford, a research assistant at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, contributed to this report.