Immigration reform has been a testy issue in the United States for more than a century, and the most recent iteration of the question is extremely divisive.
Now, eight Senators have come together with a bipartisan proposal that seeks to solve the myriad of issues that come with unauthorized entry into the U.S.
Before we solve the problem, we've got to understand it.
These charts show crucial stats on the state of immigration in the U.S.
First we'll look at the current status of unauthorized immigrants.
Next we'll look at how the U.S. tries to control the border and the difficulties therein.
Finally, we'll look at how the convoluted path to legal immigration for high skilled workers failed, and what the problems are with he current system.
Unauthorized immigrants comprise a major portion of the U.S. civilian labor force.
Close to 25 percent of farm workers, 19 percent of maintenance workers and 17 percent of construction workers were unauthorized immigrants in 2008.
And in 2008, 8 percent of births in the U.S. were children with unauthorized immigrant parents. 24 percent were from immigrants of any legal status.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider