Immigration Reform Next Year. Promise.

Senate Republicans say they'll try to pass immigration reform legislation in the next two years if they take back the Senate in November," begins a story in the Hill newspaper today. Color me skeptical.

I'm all for Republicans retaking control of the Senate, but whether that increases the chances of meaningful immigration reform passing is another matter entirely. For starters, it is the House, not the Senate, who has been blocking legislation. The Democratic-controlled Senate passed a bipartisan bill last year (with 14 Republican votes) that the Republican-controlled House has refused to consider.

Second, Republicans who oppose immigration reform increasingly cite President Obama as the reason. Specifically, they argue that the president can't be trusted to enforce new immigration laws, so why pass them? "It's going to be very difficult now to do anything comprehensive in Washington," GOP Sen. Marco Rubio told Bloomberg this week. "The argument that we continue to hear is, you're going to go ahead and do the legalization, but that's going to be linked to enforcement," he added. "But then the president is going to pick and choose which parts of the enforcement he moves forward on and which ones he doesn't, and we're going to end up with all of the legalization and only half or none of the enforcement."

That "can't trust him" argument doesn't change if Republicans gain control of the Senate, since Mr. Obama will still be president for two more years. If anything, the president might be more likely to use executive authority to bypass Congress if his party is in the minority in both chambers.

And then there is the matter of those Republicans who don't want to do anything other than add fencing and border patrols—regardless of who's president—because they fear that immigrants steal jobs. Sen. Chuck Grassley would head the powerful Judiciary Committee if Republicans win back the Senate. Mr. Grassley, a labor protectionist with a long history of opposing increases in legal immigration, now says that he'd be all for comprehensive reform if only Mitch McConnell were once again the Senate majority leader. "We'd start over again next year," Mr. Grassley told the Hill. But the senator's immigration record does not instill confidence.

House Speaker John Boehner and other GOP leaders, who argue that immigrant workers are assets to the U.S. and that the issue is hurting the party politically, might try pushing an immigration bill later this year once the primary races have been settled. But it may still come down to whether Mr. Boehner will ignore the restrictionists in his caucus and pass legislation with mostly Democratic support. That is the dilemma the speaker has faced for the past year—and one he likely will continue to face in 2015 regardless of which party controls the Senate.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...63931396711824

Others reason's why it is unlikely are the ones we ourselves would not like to admit - there would no longer be any incentive on the part of the Democrats to get it done, nearing into 2016; they already have the market cornered on the matter of Hispanic/Asian sympathy, in terms of their professed desire for immigration reform. And, they would argue, it was only due to the (predictably reliable ) intransigence of the Republican Party that nothing has passed

If they should grow anxious at so many neglected promises, its simply a matter of issuing a timely executive order to remind them which is it that is the hand that has feed them in however small a measure.

They are the party that offered a bill - a grand gesture - and were spurned. Anything offer in a Republican controlled Senate will fall "short" (likely true) of what is needed to get immigration reform done.

McCain and Graham seemed to have realized this already last week.