Monday, December 09, 2013

McConnell: Pass separate bills to reform immigration

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a speech Saturday that looking back is the way to move forward to pass immigration reform, with the Kentucky Republican citing the Compromise of 1850 by Kentucky's Henry Clay and Illinois' Stephen Douglas as a lesson about how politicians can come to a compromise over heated issues, Ryan Alessi reports for cn|2, a service of Time Warner Cable.

Because senators couldn't come to an agreement on the compromise, which dealt with slavery and related issues, it was split into several pieces "in an attempt to seek a compromise and avert a crisis between North and South," according to the Library of Congress. McConnell said Congress needs to do the same thing to pass immigration reform, Alessi reports. "While the U.S. Senate passed a comprehensive measure earlier this year, Republican House Speaker John Boehner said that bill won’t move in the lower chamber in 2013." Others in the House have talked about passing separate bills.

McConnell told the Kentucky Farm Bureau Federation at its annual meeting, "In the House of Representatives, I think the way forward is to pass separate bills dealing with various issues." He said, "Congress needs to make changes to U.S. immigration laws, including to the H-2A guest worker visa program that is important to many farms that hire immigrant workers during planting and harvesting seasons." (Read more)

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