Thread: Immigration reform effectively dead until after Obama leaves office, both sides say

By David Nakamura and Ed O’Keefe June 26 at 8:21 AM
The Washington Post

The two-year attempt to push immigration reform through Congress is effectively dead and unlikely to be revived until after President Obama leaves office, numerous lawmakers and advocates on both sides of the issue said this week.

The slow collapse of hopes for new border legislation — which has unraveled in recent months amid persistent opposition from House Republicans — marks the end of an effort that both Democrats and Republicans have characterized as central to the future of their parties. The failure leaves some 12 million illegal immigrants in continuing limbo over their status and is certain to increase political pressure on Obama from the left to act on his own.

Some of the most vocal proponents of a legislative overhaul now say they have surrendered any last hopes that Democrats and Republicans can reach a deal. The realization marks a low point for advocates who mounted the first serious immigration push since 2007, when a bipartisan effort under then-president George W. Bush was defeated in the Senate.

Obama called immigration reform his top second-term priority, and many GOP leaders suggested after their 2012 election loss to Obama that a deal was necessary for the party as it sought to broaden its appeal to Latinos.

But after a year of cajoling, prodding and berating House Republicans, leading advocates acknowledge that time has run out. Friday marks a year since the Senate approved a comprehensive immigration bill on a bipartisan vote, with no progress evident in the GOP-controlled House and little time left this year to approve legislation.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said in an interview Wednesday after denouncing his GOP colleagues for their inaction in a fiery House floor speech. “My point of view is, this is over. . . . Every day, they become not recalcitrant, but even more energetically opposed to working with us. How many times does someone have to say no until you understand they mean no?”

Chances of legislation advancing in the House are “next to zero,” said Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), a member of a bipartisan group of eight senators who led reform efforts in the upper chamber.

“It’s a shame,” Flake added. But after talking to GOP colleagues in the House, “there’s just no appetite for it right now.”

Hopes for a sweeping immigration deal had already dimmed considerably by this spring. But the Obama administration and its Democratic allies believed, based on signals from House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP leaders, that there was a final window for a deal this summer before midterm elections this fall.

Two recent developments, however, appear to have doomed whatever slim chances remained, advocates and lawmakers said. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) lost a primary election this month to a tea party challenger who ran on a strong anti-immigration platform. In addition, a new crisis erupted on the Mexican border, with tens of thousands of unaccompanied Central American children apprehended crossing the border illegally into Texas over the past several months.

House Republicans have cited both situations as evidence that the time is not right for a broad, bipartisan deal that would provide legal status, and potentially citizenship, to millions of undocumented immigrants. Many have also stepped up their rhetoric on the issue, blaming Obama policies for the border crisis and emphasizing that the president has failed to convince them he will enforce immigration laws.

During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing this week, some GOP members suggested that the United States should, among other things, cut off all economic aid to Mexico until the border is secure, build hundreds of miles of new fencing to help prevent more illegal immigration and immediately put the children arrested by Border Patrol officers on buses back to their home countries.

“I think what you need to do is ask the Guatemala government where they want these kids dropped off when the buses bring them back down there,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) told Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson during the hearing.

The ascension of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to replace Cantor as majority leader appears unlikely to add new momentum to the immigration effort, even with his representation of an agricultural district that relies heavily on immigrant farm laborers.

House GOP aides said that, like Boehner and Cantor, McCarthy believes that Obama has damaged his standing with the conference through a lax approach to enforcing immigration laws. That view — heavily disputed by the White House — was underscored Wednesday when Boehner announced at a news conference that he intends to sue Obama over the president’s use of executive powers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...07b_story.html

Sounds like a "lets lull them to sleep until after the election," campaign beginning now! In November we have to dump an adequate number of proponents of amnesty to disallow it to come up again, maybe we can get some enforcement of law with enough new Congress people. It is only a hope, based upon the last 25 years of history, voters allow themselves to be "lulled to sleep,"