After Recess, House Democrats Seek Path Forward on Immigration

Ianus · 07-09-2013, 03:33 PM

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2...n-immigration/

Quote:

The message from Congressional Democrats on Tuesday was sharp and clear: Any immigration bill that passes the House of Representatives must include a pathway to citizenship.

Returning from recess this week after the Senate passed a broad bill that would overhaul the nation’s immigration laws, House Democrats huddled with the four Democratic senators who helped draft the original bill, completing plans to help push immigration legislation through the Republican-controlled House.

The bottom line? “Without a path to citizenship, there is not going to be a bill,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York and a member of the bipartisan group of senators that wrote the Senate legislation. “There can’t be a bill.”

Mr. Schumer added that heading to a conference committee between the House and Senate without a path to citizenship would be “a path to a cul-de-sac, to no immigration bill.”

In Tuesday morning’s meeting, according to an aide familiar with Mr. Schumer’s remarks, the senator outlined what he described as Speaker John A. Boehner’s five possible options for handling the issue — doing nothing; opting for a piecemeal approach of several separate but related immigration bills; passing a comprehensive bill that does not include a path to citizenship; passing a comprehensive bill that does include a path to citizenship that is different, and likely stricter, than the one offered in the Senate bill; or taking up the legislation that has passed the Senate.

The thinking, Democratic aides said, is that if Democrats hold back their support for any legislation that does not include a citizenship component, House Republicans, faced with a core group of conservative members who oppose almost any immigration bill, will be unable to pass something on their own.

In a sign of mounting conservative opposition, William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, and Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, penned a joint blog post Tuesday called “Kill the Bill,” in which they urged House Republicans to “kill it without reservation,” adding, “There’s no rush to act on immigration.”

On Wednesday, House Republicans are scheduled to hold a special full conference meeting to discuss the best way forward on immigration. The issue has especially vexed them since the 2012 presidential elections, when Mitt Romney lost Hispanic voters to President Obama by 71 percent to 27 percent.

Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California and a member of a bipartisan group in the House hoping to unveil a broad immigration plan shortly, also spoke during Tuesday’s meeting. According to an aide present in the room, Ms. Lofgren warned against a piecemeal approach, pointing to the five immigration bills that have already passed through House committees, largely on party-line votes. Those bills, she said, according to the aide, are not compromise pieces of legislation.

Speaking after the meeting, Representative Xavier Becerra, Democrat of California and a member of the bipartisan House group, again stressed that a path to citizenship was critical to any House plan.

“We hope our Republican colleagues in the House will be ready to reach across the aisle to work with us, because I don’t believe that the House of Representatives can pass any major immigration reform without Democratic support,” he said. “I don’t see how Speaker Boehner and the House Republicans can pass real immigration reform that fixes the broken immigration system without Democratic votes.”

zone2oo0 · 07-09-2013, 05:42 PM

After Recess.. .lol

theguywitheyes · 07-09-2013, 08:06 PM

WTF? i thought they said "before recess" a conclusion will come out!

dtrt09 · 07-09-2013, 08:47 PM

Where the hell is the "bipartisan" bill from this guy and Gutierrez? He just said last Thursday it'd be out bt now. What a f* joke.

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After Recess, House Democrats Seek Path Forward on Immigration