Immigration bill delayed until after Memorial Day

Once again, the Senate finds itself bogged down trying to work out the specifics of the Immigration Reform Act.  Further action will be delayed until June:

In a nod to that opposition, Senate leaders won't seek to complete it before a hoped-for Memorial Day deadline.

Because in today's era the political climate on Capitol Hill is more hyper-partisan, it is difficult for the center to run things.  We are seeing that play out, as interest groups all over the political map have problems with the bill:

Conservatives want more bordercontrol and are alarmed at the enormous numbers of immigrants nowarriving on U.S. shores both legally, about 1.3 million, and illegally,estimated at 400,000 a year. Liberals and business and ethnic immigrantgroups want legalization for those already here and a path to permanentresidency for future workers.

California farmers who have sentdelegation after delegation to Washington complaining of fruits andvegetables rotting in the fields are among the few who are happy.

If no bill is passed, not only will it add another rotten tomato to Bush's legacy, but it could hurt the Democrats in 2008 as well.  Many swing voters are going to evaluate what got done during the Pelosi-Reid era, and ask themselves whether yet another change of direction is needed. 

Also, this debate will continue to take attention away from Iraq -- so the sooner we can resolve it, the merrier.

Comments

[granny]

I think it's fair to say that Pelosi & Co. came to the table with a heavy burden of more than the usual business at hand. The antics of this Adminstration over its tenure is such a rats nest of corruption and abuse/misuse of power, that is taking a great deal of attention (and should be, I hasten to say).

I think we've got to get over, and do the work to help stem the tide of, all this party-political "who-shot-john" discussion, as if it were inherently meaningful. Just getting something passed is not the genuine issue.

This garbage bill shouldn't be passed. And coming up with another one of any merit is going to take a lot more thought than a couple of weeks can give it.

The immigration issue is enormously complicated, and to just "pass a bill" - willy-nilly, would be ill advised. I think the current bill is lousy. Just awful. Beyond what is DOES say, it fails to address myriad issues that have served to get us into this predicament. There's a lot more involved in the problem than it even bothers to address.

Beyond that, there is every evidence that we can't enforce anything we come up with, anyway. The proposals for enforcement, so far, are simply turning further toward becoming facist in our own culture.

The immigration problem have been around forever -and we're talking about PEOPLE here, not just "an issue". This race to some grand finale gesture is a big time case of: we need to back off and spend the honest effort and intelligence, and devoted time, to sifting through the biogtry and self interests on all sides, and coming up with something that CAN work. THAT is a long way off. And in the interim there are things that could be done, I think, to ameliorate at least some of the growing "problems".

In the end no one is going to be completely satisfied. It's an issue that's too personally loaded; too long overdue.

[Chief Editor: Todd]

Great comments all around, Granny. On a political level, need a renewed trend of honesty and decency in this country. No wonder so many people my age are turned off to politics. We're sick of the status quo. Whatever we end up doing on immigration, hopefully it is based on respect for all people -- even people that are not here lawfully.