"Our nation's immigration system is broken. Fixing it is an economic and national security imperative." – www.WhiteHouse.gov
This not "humanitarianism" is behind the US bosses' determination to pass their Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR). "Economic security" is the code they use to hide their need to halt their imperial decline by trying to remain economically competitive in the world's markets. "National security" is a euphemism that hides the US bosses' efforts to shore up their eroding world empire by launching wider wars, and preparing for the eventual but inevitable world war with rising powers like China and Russia. Working people have no nations. Our security lies in uniting with the workers of the world to do away with exploitation and borders.

US bosses' immediate economic needs
US bosses need to rebuild their industrial base on the cheap to produce more competitive goods, but most importantly for their future war production. For this, they must drastically lower wages, benefits and working conditions for all US workers. The CIR will help the bosses accomplish this by forcing millions of undocumented workers to labor under conditions resembling indentured servitude. The bosses will then use this as a battering ram to force similar conditions on all US workers. That's why the "path to citizenship" is so long and uncertain. (See below)

US imperialists' short term military needs
CIR includes the DREAM Act, supported by the Pentagon. Of the 2 million undocumented youth brought here before the age of 16, about 700 thousand will be eligible for a shorter path to citizenship. They must complete two years towards a bachelor's degree or 4 years of military service (actually, the army requires 8 years). The majority, because of financial problems, racist conditions, and cuts in public education,
will end up in the military. This will keep alive the bosses "all-volunteer" army until the draft is instituted for wider wars and the eventual interimperialist conflagration.

US bosses' long term economic and military needs
In January 2011, the first of 78 million workers born after 1946 began retiring at the rate of 4 million a year. The 11 million undocumented workers and their 4.6 million US born children are needed to fill some of those jobs being vacated and to be care givers for the retirees. But, the US bosses hope that, as capitalism's worldwide economic crisis deepens and world war becomes inevitable, the younger immigrants and their children will fight patriotically to defend their profits and empire. They also hope millions of these CIR immigrants will loyally slave in their war industries to produce weapons for their insatiable war machine.

We need the life and collective creativity of communism, not the death and destruction of capitalism
Our need is for a communist world: a world where society's primary concern is for workers' lives and the environment needed to sustain and help us flourish to our fullest potential. We need and we must have a world without wage slavery, borders, racism, and war. We need a world where all production is to meet human needs, not to make anyone rich. We need a world where no one will be called "illegal" or "immigrant" because everyone will always be welcomed everywhere, as brothers and sisters, to contribute and share the product of our collective labor.

Communism won't fall from the sky. We must mobilize the masses for it.

The racist US bosses hope to mobilize millions of immigrant workers, their children, relatives, friends and supporters to patriotically serve US imperialism's needs. They think these workers will be forever grateful for allowing them to have drivers' licenses, social security numbers, to travel internally and maybe abroad to visit their family, and to work and live without the threat of deportation.
However, the horrendous living and working conditions that capitalism in crisis must impose on all workers will turn these workers' sighs of reliefs into cries of anger and hatred. Patriotism will ring hollow to those killing and dying on the bosses' battlefields.
"Legal" immigrants and US-born workers and soldiers suffering under the same fascist conditions will have the objective need to unite with these workers and soldiers regardless of immigration status, "race" or creed. Revolution will then grip the workers' imagination from factories to barracks, from schools to neighborhoods. But, it won't happen unless we mobilize the masses for communism now. That is our historic challenge and responsibility.

IMMIGRATION REFORM= SUPER-EXPLOITATION FOR DECADES?

Six months after the Immigration Reform Bill is approved, undocumented workers can apply to be "registered provisional immigrants." After ten years of continuous work, these workers can apply for a green card. If they are unemployed for more than 60 days, they can be deported. The US Congress can extend the ten year period, if it determines that the southern border is not sufficiently secure.
Besides, no new green cards are supposed to be given out until the backlog of 4.6 million waiting worldwide in line is cleared. This could take decades. Mexico presently has 1.3 million approved applicants, but only 47,250 are currently admitted annually to the US. At that rate, 23 years must pass to clear that backlog.
The bosses "promise" to clear all backlogs to speed up the processing of the CIR applicants. But, even if done, it will still take several years to process these 11 million and the new applicants from the whole world. During this time, the applicants can travel outside the country with some restrictions. After their wait has ended, before receiving their green cards, they must pay a fine and back taxes, submit to background checks, learn English and prove they are working. Three to five years after getting a green card, they can become citizens.The bosses can therefore turn the ten year-period into decades of waiting.