Ah,the uniting of the three,Harry Reid,the President and now
Boehner indicating immigration reform is on the table....the race is on.
Quote:
House Speaker John A. Boehner said Thursday that his chamber will tackle a broad immigration bill in the next Congress — a nod to the growing power of Hispanics, but a move that’s likely to produce a bloody battle within his own party.
“This issue has been around far too long,” Mr. Boehner told ABC on Thursday. “A comprehensive approach is long overdue, and I’m confident that the president, myself, others can find the common ground to take care of this issue once and for all.”
His support instantly boosts the issue to the top of the legislative agenda.
Mr. Boehner used the term “comprehensive,” which has generally meant dealing with the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S., as well as rewriting the legal immigration system.
But many Republicans say granting those illegal immigrants any legal status amounts to amnesty.
Mr. Boehner joins Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama in putting immigration high on the priority list for next year.
Hispanics voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Obama in Tuesday’s election, and many in the GOP blamed a tough stance on illegal immigration as part of the reason.
But Kris W. Kobach, Kansas secretary of state and co-architect of some of the state immigration crackdown laws, said that is a misread of the results.
He said polling earlier in the year showed that independent voters liked Mitt Romney’s stricter stance on the issue better than Mr. Obama’s stance, which called for a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
“In my opinion, had Romney taken a pro-amnesty position he would have lost independent voters by a significant margin,” Mr. Kobach said on Wednesday. “Immigration was one of the few issues that was pulling independent voters to Romney.”
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