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Democrats plan to to slip immigration changes into $3.5T budget bill, pass without GOP votes
[Just the News] Expected to be included in the Congressional Democrats' $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill is language that will advance the party's goals for immigration reform. Working with the White House, a group of top Capitol Hill Democrats are workshopping placing a handful of immigration measures into the spending bill that will likely be passed via budget reconciliation, that is with no Republican support.Democrats are reportedly attempting to include pathways to citizenship for a number of illegal immigrant groups in the bill, including "dreamers," who came or were brought to the United States as minors, and farmworkers already living and working in the country. The Hispanic Caucus is also lobbying to include giving out green cards to "essential workers," including those who work on the frontlines of health professions during the pandemic, as part of the legislation. It is not clear that the Democrats will be able to include all, or any, of these measures in the final framework of the bill, if they wish to pass it without Republican support. There will likely be a lively back-and-forth with the Senate parliamentarian (who happens to be a former immigration lawyer) regarding what immigration policy can, under the complex and sometimes obscure rules of the Senate, be included in the budget. To qualify for Senate passage with a simple majority vote, which the $3.5 trillion package theoretically will, any given part of it must directly relate to federal revenue. It remains to be seen how Democrats will retrofit their immigration goals to meet the standards of the Senate rules in that regard. Posted by: Snomoth Whereling9836 2021-07-18 |
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