Republican leadership going ahead with piecemeal immigration reform.
American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: The Republican leadership in the US House of Representatives is going ahead with their plan of how to deal with comprehensive immigration reform: by doing piecemeal legislation. Proof of this was evident when Speaker John Boehner endorsed a proposal by Majority Leader Eric Cantor to give citizenship to children who were brought here illegally as young children.
Boehner’s thumbs up sign is sure to appease certain sections of the Latino community, who stand to gain the most from the measure which will be taken up the Judiciary Committee next week. But it remains to be seen if the Senate will see eye to eye with the House proposal if it comes to them, as they have made it clear that no proposal that does not take into account legalizing the entire 11 million illegal immigrants will find favor with them.
“This is about basic fairness,” Boehner was quoted as saying by The Hill. ““These children were brought here of no accord of their own, and frankly they’re in a very difficult position. And I think many of our members believe that this issue needs to be addressed.”
“It’s an issue of decency and compassion,” Cantor said, reported the Hill. “Where else would these kids go?”
A controversial interview published by The Daily Caller is bound to come up for discussion on the issue of ‘Dreamers’ or the young children who were brought here illegally.
National Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Council president Chris Crane said in an interview to the Caller that President Obama’s actions on immigration and blind eye to illegal immigration has made it nearly impossible for ICE agents to enforce the law.
“What the Obama Administration has ICE agents now doing is we now go into jails and prisons looking for illegal aliens inside of those facilities who have committed and been convicted of crimes. So we apply the Dream Act not to kids, in schools, but to adult inmates and have to ask them basically ‘Do you qualify for President Obama’s Dream Act?’ When they tell us ‘Yes we qualify’ we can’t even require them to give us any kind of proof, a transcript, or anything like that. We can’t detain them for investigation to substantiate the claims, we simply have to release them to the street. They walk out the back door of the jail as ‘Dreamers.’ There is nothing we can do about that,” said Crane in the interview to the Caller.
Even as the Republican leadership go about trying to do piecemeal legislation, the so called ‘Gang of Seven’ bipartisan members in the House, are going ahead with their draft proposal of comprehensive immigration reform.
A report in the International Business Times, quoting an aide of one of the members involved in the draft proposal, said that the bill is moving forward slowly, and it is unlikely to be introduced this summer. The bill has been in the works for about four years, and has stalled many times over issues such as health insurance. The thorny issue, however, would be if the proposal will add language to legalize the 11 million undocumented immigrants, something which the Senate has done in their bill.