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At a joint House and Senate leadership meeting late Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised to House leaders that he would put an immigration bill on the floor this year. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, also in the Tuesday evening meeting, said the House would prioritize immigration reform, according to a Democratic leadership source with knowledge of the meeting.
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I am not sure what Graham is trying to do here, but he is not being an effective cheerleader for CIR at all.
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But Graham is pessimistic. “No one’s spent any political capital laying the groundwork for this,” he told POLITICO Tuesday. “In 2007, with President Bush, you had two Cabinet secretaries up here for three days a week, two to three hours a day. That’s what it takes, and that’s what’s been missing,” he said.
Obama did not provide a timeline on immigration reform, Gitcho said, though Democrats are expecting Schumer to release a comprehensive bill within the next month.
Democratic aides cautioned that negotiations on an immigration bill are in their infancy. Business and labor groups have to hash out how to structure a temporary worker program, and Democrats will have to muster votes within their own caucus and get support from at least one Republican.
Top Republican advocates on immigration reform remain very skeptical that the legislation will go anywhere this year.
“With the toxic environment after healthcare, I just don’t think you’re going to get a lot of moderate Democrats jumping into the comprehensive immigration debate this close to an election year,” Graham said.
Graham said one way to open the door to a comprehensive bill could be a set of border security measures like those backed by Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl, Arizona’s Republican senators.
McCain and Kyl want to send National Guard troops to the Arizona border and strengthen a series of other measures in a bid to tamp down increasingly violent border incursions.
“If something like that passed, you could go to the body next year and say, okay, let’s look at all the moving parts,” Graham said of the McCain-Kyl proposals.
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