Describe immigration policy on the state and federal level Immigration policy in the United States is aimed towards multiple goals. These goals are: reuniting immigrants with their families when some part of the family is living within the United States; secondly, bringing in workers with special skills to fill positions of shortage; third, providing political asylum to refugees seeking protection in an alien land; and finally, ensuring diversity by admitting people with low rates of immigration to the United States. The Congressional Budget Office paper outlines the categories of people eligible for immigration to the United States and also includes the latest data admitted under each category recently. It even provides estimates of the number of people who are in the United States illegally. To enter US legally, there are two distinct paths: permanent admission may be given by according the status of lawful permanent residents (LPRs). Such people receive a permanent resident card or green card. The second path is admission on a temporary basis. Temporary admission is provided by the national government to a large and diverse group of people for a specific purpose for a limited period of time for reasons such as tourism, diplomatic missions, study and temporary work. Diversity immigrants, the last group of any size, come from a variety of countries under a “lottery” system without respect to the number entering from their countries via other visa groups. The Constitution does not directly define the scope of federal power to regulate immigration, but possible textual sources of the federal power include the Naturalization Clause that addresses citizenship but not regulation of aliens and the Migration Clause that deals with slavery (Booth, 2006). The earliest debate regarding the distribution of powers over immigration between the federal and state governments arose in the context of the Alien Act of 1798. Debate surrounding this law focused on whether Congress could supersede the authority of states to regulate immigration (Booth, 2006). Proponents of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions claimed that the states, not the federal government, retained general power over aliens. Some others suggested that states as sovereign entities possess the inherent authority to enforce immigration laws and regulate immigration. Legally, the state governments’ powers are limited only to the extent that the Constitution or federal law preempts such power and it is not clear whether the state has the ability to enact and enforce civil laws regarding immigration. Some members of Congress have proposed legislation that would confirm this authority and facilitate cooperation among state, local, and federal officials in the enforcement of immigration laws. Compare statistics of New York’s immigration to other states According to data published by the Department of Home Security, in the year 2007, the number of persons obtaining legal residence in the United States totaled 1,052,415. Of these, California topped with 264,667 followed by New York in the second place with 136,739. They were followed by Florida 155,986, Texas 77, 278 and Illinois 41,971 (Jefferys and Monger, 2007). The DHS year book 2006 provides the following da