Irish hopes rise in Schumer immigration hearings

As the immigration debate starts up I am sure many will wonder how the Senator from New York will handle the challenge of the debate versus his predecessor,Senator Kennedy.A Schumer aide from this article might give a hint as to how the Chairman of the Senate immigration sub-committee will progress.

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            Schumer’s New York chief of staff Martin Brennan told the Irish Voice on Tuesday that Thursday’s hearing will “start the conversation” on immigration reform in the U.S.<br />

“This is the first of a series of hearings on a variety of issues,” said Brennan. “This fist hearing will kick off a re-examination of the immigration issue and come at it from a variety of different perspectives including economics, security, religion, labor and civil rights.

“It’s a way to start he conversation here again about how we might move forward to put together another comprehensive approach to address the immigration issue that so sorely needs to be addressed here.”

On Senator Arlen Specter’s announcement on Tuesday that he will run for re-election next year as a Democrat, Brennan said, “It’s too soon to tell if it will have a significant affect on the immigration debate” and prospects of immigration reform.

“Arlen has a history of being a moderate in his former party on immigration related issues, and he is a welcome endeavor to our caucus. It strengthens the overall hand of Democrats.”

Brennan said it was too soon to tell what a new immigration bill would contain, but he said Schumer will be looking at various issues in depth before putting anything on paper.

“It’s much too early to speculate. This is the kick off for a renewed conversation but among other things, he (Schumer) is a strong supporter of strong employer ID requirements that will truncate the ability for future undocumented immigration to the U.S., and that is one of the key issues here,” said Brennan.