The topic of immigration continues to be a hot-button issue in the United States, especially after President Barack Obama vowed to begin new efforts to fix the country's immigration system.

This year alone, immigration authorities expect a surge of more than 70,000 unaccompanied minors to enter the United States illegally.

To make sense of the current state of immigration in the U.S., we went In Depth with Frank Symphorien-Saavedra, an attorney and Florida Bar board-certified immigration expert with the NeJame Law Firm.

 

JACKIE BROCKINGTON: Frank, you're a lawyer who specializes in immigration. What's the current border-crossing law here in the United States?

FRANK SYMPHORIEN-SAAVEDRA: We've got, essentially, two systems that apply to nations or individuals who come from neighboring countries, and then we have a different system for individuals who come from nonadjoining countries, like in Central America.

The system is that for individuals who are from adjoining countries, we can esstenially return them fairly quickly. We have a pretty good system in place where, as long as there is no underlying humanitary reason where they cannot be returned, we can esstenially repatriate them in a matter of days, whether they're adults or minors.

However, the system that's in place under an act passed in 2008 for nonadjoining countries, this system essentially requires that unaccompanied minors be placed in a process, be given an opportunity to see an immigration judge, present any opportunities they might have for legal defenses against their deportation, and it just ensures that they have a little more of a due process in the system of repatriation.

JB: I just saw recently that there was a mother and her child — it took them 15 days — they were coming between the U.S. and Mexican border. Now, the president is making a recent trip and says he's not going to visit the border. But these are unaccompanied minors, and they're crossing on a daily basis.

FSS: That's right, and we've had an unprecedented surge in the last few years, actually. I think the reality is this has come to light only recently because of some of the pictures that we've seen on the border, detention facilities. But, unfortunately, this is in a situation that has been in place and reality for the past few years.

JB: Is there a solution? We've got 11 million undocumented people who've come to the United States, who are here, part of the infrastructure. What do we do with all of these people?

FSS: Unfortunately, that's the big, million-dollar question, and if I had the answer to that, I might be a millionaire. But the reality is that it's a complex problem, and it's going to take varying approaches to solving the problem.

Whether you attack the situation from resolving the millions of people that we have here undocumented who, in reality, are the magnet, for the most part for many of these individual family members, children who were left behind. And so you've got to address those root causes, and then obviously enforcement is an important consideration that needs to be taking place.

There may be some tweaking that needs to be done with the 2008 statute that really provides a lot of limitations on what the president, or what customs and border protection potentially can do with regards to unaccompanied minors. And also, obviously, there needs to be additional resources for processing of these people in a way that ensures that their due process rights are preserved.