Public policy refers to the action of the government in solving an existing problem to improve the life of the people. Public policies are enacted to protect citizens, aid the government, and regulate business and to encourage social goals. A policy enacted by the government goes through different stages from inception to termination. Consider the immigration issue in America. Immigration is a problem which needs to be handled. Before creating a policy, a serious problem must be existing such as the immigration process.

After realizing a problem, a policy is formulated. Policy formulation involves coming up with the best approach to the problem. Parties involved include congress, courts, the executive branch as well as any interested group. Different people give contradictory proposals. The president can have an approach to the problem while the opposition has a contradictory problem.  The outcomes of a policy formulation are tangible. A bill goes to a regulatory body or the congress (Birkland, 2014).  If the congress passes legislation, the policy is adopted and the regulation becomes final or the Supreme Court makes a decision. On the immigration issue, President Obama proposed to give amnesty to the illegal immigrants who pass the background check and pay back taxes for three years.  He argued that such immigrants attended American schools and pledged to American flag. This makes them Americans only that this is not in paper. The immigrants however will not be given a path to citizenship. The opposition on the other hand proposes that these illegal immigrants be deported.

Once the decision is made, implementation kicks in. implementation is carried out by the relevant institutions in which case the immigration policy will be implemented by the department of homeland security (Birkland, 2014). A statute provides the outline of the policy but the implementing agency develops the procedures for measuring and compliance.     The success of the implementation process depends largely on the complexity of the policy. Some policies are hard to implement while others requires time.  The policy requires evaluation. This is meant to determine how well the policy is working. Evaluation is mostly done by cost-benefit analysis.  This is a comparison of the amount of money spent on the policy implementation and the value of the benefits received. However, the interpretation of the value of the benefits depends on the person evaluating.

Historically, once a policy is implemented, it is hard to terminate it.  The policy only becomes obsolete, lost its support or it did not work. Again, if the policy loses interest in the same people who supported it can be terminated (Birkland, 2014). In some cases, the cost can be more that the benefit in which case implementation leads to a loss. For long lasting policies, the upcoming presidents can propose changes to the policy or enacts different new policies.

The Supreme Court has not yet made a decision concerning the immigration issues as proposed by President Obama. The state of Texas had challenged the policy in the Supreme Court. Once the Supreme Court makes a ruling in Favor of the President, the department of homeland security will go ahead and implements the policy.

Reference

Birkland, T. A. (2014). An introduction to the policy process: Theories, concepts and models of public policy making. Routledge.

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