9/11 Criminal backgrounds have been enhanced, a list of countries have been red flag marked as requiring their citizens to undergo a most stringent criminal security background making longer the process of approval and therefore admittance to the US. 9/11 let us remember but also not pay the price of others wrong doings.

From the moment the first plane hit the North Tower, the immigration system in the United States was destined to change.

The attacks on September 11, 2001 certainly didn’t start the country’s immigration debate, but it did alter the course of the discussion.

Immigration was already a staple of the nightly news through the 1990s into the 2000s. After a series of free trade agreements realigned economies in Mexico and Central America, millions of migrants headed to northern Mexico and the U.S. looking for work. Suddenly, securing the U.S.-Mexico border –- what had once been as diaphanous as the line between New York and New Jersey -– became a national priority.

Still, prior to 9/11, President George W. Bush could best be described as an immigration moderate. Many expected Bush, who routinely and proudly spoke Spanish to his constituency, to pass some type of immigration reform. In the Senate, he had a strong ally in Arizona Republican John McCain, who would later cosponsor a reform bill with Democrat Ted Kennedy.

But instead of embracing immigration reform, the country found itself contracting in the decade after the terrorist attacks, according to David Burnham, the co-director of Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), an organization that gathers government data.

“After 9/11, the Bush administration tried to see immigration enforcement as a way to fight terrorism,” Burnham said. “And it’s just not.”

While immigration policy has certainly differed during the Bush and Obama presidencies, I decided to take a look at some of the most significant changes to the immigration system since the 2001 terrorist attacks. Obviously this is a topic that could fill up volumes, but we can at least touch on the major themes here.