Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Republicans keep talking about immigration reform

Talk of immigration reform is increasing, but it remains to be seen whether Republicans are giving lips service to donors who favor it or are willing to take on a strong cadre of GOP House members who oppose it. Speaker John Boehner and other senior House Republicans are informing industry groups that they plan to pass immigration bills this year, though many GOP lawmakers are hesitant to deal with this difficult issue before elections, Laura Meckler writes for The Wall Street Journal. (Read more)  Former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and some other Illinois Republicans and CEOs, organized as the Illinois Business Immigration Coalition, are asking GOP leaders to pass immigration reform, Matt Fuller of Roll Call reports.

Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida argues that it's better to act this year than next, when GOP presidential primary politics will intervene, Greg Sargent writes for The Washington Post. Diaz-Balart said if Republicans do not act on the issue now, they could not only lose their chance to influence the reform and make any further reform impossible until 2017, but also risk influencing President Barack Obama to take actions on his own. "I'm convinced that if we don't get it done by the August break, the president, who is feeling a lot of pressure from having not done anything on immigration reform, will feel that he has to act through executive actions," Diaz-Balart said. He even noted that the president could blame the Republicans for Congress' lack of action. (Read more)

"Obama administration officials are considering allowing bond hearings for immigrants in prolonged detention, officials, said, a shift that could low the pace of deportations because immigration courts expedite cases of incarcerated immigrants," Brian Bennett and Christi Parsons write for the Los Angeles Times. This is one of multiple ideas being discussed in an effort to address concerns from Latino groups and other allies. Some Republicans favor passing reform in pieces, starting with bills for agricultural workers.

The left has become frustrated with Obama, saying he is the "deporter-in-chief" because 2 million immigrants have been deported during his tenure, which puts him on track to "have deported more people by the end of 2014 than George W. Bush did in his entire eight years," Dara Lind writes on Vox. On the other hand, the right is angry with the president, too, saying he is not properly enforcing immigration laws. The difference in perspective depends on the number of people who have been sent home without marks on their records and the number who have been formally removed. (Read more)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"low the pace"

Did you mean "slow the pace"?