Democrats ponder immigration push

By CQ Staff

Democratic House leaders, watching signals in the Senate from Majority Leader Harry Reid, are considering a vote in the lame-duck session on a limited immigration bill that conservative GOP members have pledged to block.
A House Democratic aide said leaders are discussing the immigration bill (HR 1751, S 3827) with members, but had not decided whether to press forward during the lame-duck session. A decision may hinge on how the bill fares in the Senate.
The bill, which offers conditional legal status to illegal immigrants’ children if they go to college or join the military for two years, stalled in the Senate before the election recess. Reid, D-Nev., pledged to revive it in the interim session before the holidays.
With only a narrow window before the session’s end, leaders of both chambers are weighing promises to important Democratic constituencies. Reid will have a smaller majority in the 112th Congress, while Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will be in the minority.
Immigration advocates and Hispanic groups have begun a new campaign for passage of the legislation in the lame-duck session, saying they are owed a vote after Hispanics overwhelmingly supported Reid and other Democrats in tight Senate races in Colorado and California.
Early this year, Pelosi said the Senate needed to act first on any immigration legislation, and that House members had complained that more politically contentious votes would cost them their seats. The bill never got a vote in the House.
The bill’s passage, even with election pressure off, is remote at best. Senate Republicans who previously supported the legislation say they no longer do, and House Republicans are also adamantly opposed to it, as are some conservative Democrats.
Steve King of Iowa, the likely chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee in the 112th Congress, said this week he will oppose any effort to pass the immigration legislation.
“I think it’s clear this Congress has already passed a lot of unpopular things,” King said. “That’s why they’re leaving town and going home. If they’re determined to try to pass more unpopular things, I think the memory of the American people will extend well into the 2012 election.”
The bill has typically been viewed as a path to college education for undocumented immigrants who are unable to secure college loans or assistance, but during the summer and fall, the legislation’s supporters touted the bill’s other avenue to legal status: two years in the armed services.
That argument was used as Reid sought to attach the bill to the $725.7 billion fiscal 2011 defense authorization bill (S 3454), which also would repeal the military’s policy against openly gay servicemembers. Republicans threatened to filibuster in September, and the defense bill failed on a procedural vote without the immigration bill coming to a vote.
Veterans Day provided still another platform for proponents of the legislation. Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, one of the top groups advocating for an overhaul of federal immigration law, said that the bill would be a boon for the military.
“The measure has been around for a decade, and there’s no reason why Democrats and Republicans shouldn’t come together to pass it now,” he said in a statement.
-- Theo Emery, CQ Staff