by Sandra Lilley
5:00 pm on 05/15/2013
nbclatino.com


The Senate Judiciary Committee is currently debating and amending an immigration bill. (Photo/Getty Images )

Legislators in Congress – especially Republicans – are turning their attention to plenty of issues – the IRS and Tea Party groups, Benghazi, and the Justice Department’s seizure of journalist records. Republican legislators like Florida Senator Marco Rubio have been calling for investigations and firings over these latest controversies. Some say this can quickly become a liability for the Obama administration as it tries to move its agenda forward.

“If they (the Administration) can’t get a hold and change the narrative, it’s going to cause a lot of trouble for the White House,” said Republican strategist Danny Vargas on MSNBC today.

So will the focus on these issues and controversies derail an immigration bill from reaching the President’s desk by the end of the summer?

Immigration supporters in the Senate say this is not the case.

“We are really making a lot of headway through the Senate Judiciary Committee right now; in fact, it’s getting done as we speak,” says José Parra, director of Hispanic media and Deputy Director of Communications for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

“Senator Reid has said from the beginning this is one of his top if not the top priority, and he continues to think so,” states Parra. “He intends to have it on the floor in the month of June,” he adds.

Katherine Vargas, White House Director of Hispanic Media, says the President summed it up best in a recent news conference . ”I feel confident that the bipartisan work that’s been done on immigration reform will result in a bill that passes the Senate, passes the House, and gets on my desk. And that’s going to be a historic achievement,” said President Obama, when asked about the prospects of immigration legislation this year.

But others, like University of Notre Dame professor Allert Brown-Gort, are not so sure.

“It’s not whether Benghazi or the IRS or AP sucks the oxygen out of the room for immigration reform – it’s whether some Republicans, especially in the House, will use this as an excuse to put off hearings and not move the legislation forward,” says Brown-Gort, a faculty fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

Brown-Gort says that while the Republican party leadership and the “intelligentsia” are pushing for it, “their base is saying ‘no’ – the Republicans got hoisted on their own petard on the success of the word amnesty,’ he adds.

Immigration reform advocates point to the fact that only a small group of House Republicans joined a press conference yesterday against the current immigration reform bill. ”The House press conference underscored the fact that these opponents are rapidly losing influence,” said America’s Voice Frank Sharry. Conservative Republican Congressman Steve Stockman said in the press conference they will have a “gang of millions” against the bill.

In the meantime, the Senate Judiciary Committee meets tomorrow again – and at least in the Senate, the bill is on its way.

http://nbclatino.com/2013/05/15/will...ration-reform/