BREAKING: Senate Passes Historic Immigration Reform

On Thursday afternoon, an immigration reform bill that would affect millions of undocumented immigrants was approved by a final vote of 68 to 32 in the Senate. The bill puts up to 11 million undocumented immigrants on a pathway to citizenship and enforces tough border security measures. Vice President Joe Biden presided over the historic vote, in which all the senators were required to vote from their desks. The Senate gallery was packed with exuberant DREAMers, undocumented youths who were brought to the U.S. by their parents. The gallery chanted “Yes we can” after the bill was officially passed.

After the cloture vote occurred early Thursday afternoon, politicians on both sides of the aisle spoke emotionally about the need to pass the bill.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) teared up as he spoke of his wife’s father, who immigrated from Russia, and reflected on the letters sent to him by undocumented individuals who were brought to the U.S. as children and raised in fear of deportation. He compared present-day immigrants to all the previous waves of immigrants, notably lauding the achievements that these new Americans could contribute:

It recognizes that today’s immigrants came for the very same reason as generations before them– to achieve a dream we take for granted, the right to live in the land of the free.

Across the aisle, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) invoked his immigrant parents as he argued passionately that immigration reform will help future generations to fulfill their dreams:

Here, immigrants will give their children the life they once wanted for themselves. Here generations of unfulfilled dreams will finally come to pass. Even with all our challenges, we remain the shining city on the hill. We are still the hope of the world. And in the end, that is why I support this reform. Yes, I believe in immigrants, but I believe in America even more.

The bill now faces an uphill battle in the House, where many Republican congressmen have vowed their opposition to any kind of an immigration deal that includes a pathway to citizenship. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has promised that he would not advance a reform bill without a majority agreement by House Republicans.

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BREAKING: Senate Clears Way For Immigration Reform Bill To Pass With Broad Bipartisan Support

On Monday night, the Senate moved forward a key provision predicted to make or break its ability to pass comprehensive immigration reform. The amendment, offered by Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and John Hoeven (R-ND) and known as the “border surge” amendment, would add 20,000 border patrol agents, require the completion of 700 miles of fencing, and add 18 unmanned surveillance aircraft along the southern border. It escaped a filibuster by a vote of 67 to 27, with several Republicans joining the Democratic majority.

At a price tag of $30 billion to fund the agents alone, critics have said the amendment amounts to unnecessary spending — particularly given the fact that illegal immigration is at net zero, and the border is more secure than Republicans mandated it be in a 2007 reform effort. Still, the amendment enjoys broad support from progressives because it preserves one of the key aspects of the reform effort: a pathway to citizenship.

Shortly before the vote on Monday, the Congressional Budget Office released updated statistics on the bill given the adoption of the Corker-Hoeven amendment. It found that the amendment “would reduce the net flow of unauthorized residents to the United States relative to” the underlying bill. It also found that it would reduce the deficit slightly less than the underlying bill, given the spending required to implement the new border measures, in the first decade.

The vote on Monday night was for cloture — the ability to end debate on the amendment and move forward to voting for it. The Senate will now proceed to debate and then vote on the amendment itself. It is expected to pass.

On Wednesday, the Senate approved the amendment by a vote of 69 to 29.

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Why The GOP Can’t Afford To Kill The Immigration Bill

(Credit: flickr user nfaile)

Immigration reform passed the Senate on Thursday, with 14 Republicans voting in favor. Despite this bipartisan support in the Senate, the bill could easily die in the more polarized House or thereafter in the conference process. If it does, the cause of death will be a lack of Republican support. That will reinforce the anti-immigrant image of today’s GOP, as well as its generally obstructionist public image — both of which could have serious electoral consequences for a party that’s already on the demographic ropes.

A lively debate is breaking out amongst conservatives about how to handle this challenge. Karl Rove has just published a piece in the Wall Street Journal where he comes down squarely on the pro-immigration reform camp’s side:

If the GOP leaves nonwhite voters to the Democrats, than its margins in safe congressional districts and red states will dwindle—not overnight, but over years and decades.

For example, the Hispanic population in Georgia’s Gwinnett County increased by 153% from 2000 to 2010 while the GOP’s presidential vote in the county dropped to 54% in 2012 from 63.7% in 2000. In Henry County, south of Atlanta, the Hispanic population increased by 339% over the same decade. The GOP’s presidential vote dropped to 51.2% in 2012 from 66.4% in 2000. Republicans ignore changes like these at their peril.

Many conservatives counter that better turnout and support among whites can compensate for losses among Hispanics. Rove takes on that argument directly:

To have prevailed over Mr. Obama in the electoral count, Mr. Romney would have had to carry 62.54% of white voters. That’s a tall order, given that Ronald Reagan received 63% of the white vote in his 1984 victory, according to the Congressional Quarterly’s analysis of major exit polls. It’s unreasonable to expect Republicans to routinely pull numbers that last occurred in a 49-state sweep.

Of course, that’s not to say that it is not technically possible for the Republicans to get increased levels of white support and/or turnout, nor that it’d be impossible to pair that with lower levels of black turnout and/or support for Democrats even as the minority vote continues to grow. Sean Trende of RealClearPolitics has outlined all these possibilities in considerable detail (in a later post, I’ll take a more in-depth look at some of Trende’s scenarios).

But just because something is technically possible doesn’t mean it’s your best option. Far from it: the fact of the matter is immigration reform is highly likely to happen eventually and is already quite popular among the American public. In a recent Gallup poll, 87 percent of Americans said that, if they could vote on issues on Election Day, they would vote for a law that sounds a lot like the Senate immigration bill. In a recent Pew poll, 71 percent said they supported a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants, including 66 percent of whites and 69 percent of independents.

Do Republicans really want to put themselves on the wrong side once again of overwhelming public sentiment, just as they did on background checks for gun purchases? It wreak havoc on their image and not just among Hispanics — they’ll also be looking less attractive to young whites, moderate whites, college-educated whites (particularly women), and basically anyone outside of their hard core of support. That would make their task of jacking up their support among whites to stratospheric levels kind of difficult. In other words, killing immigration reform could wind up being a lose-lose proposition. The choice is theirs.

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Minutes After Supreme Court Strikes Down DOMA, Immigration Judge Stops Deportation Of Married Gay Man

(Credit: stopthedeportations.com)

A New York City immigration judge immediately stopped the deportation proceedings of a gay Colombian man who is legally married to an American citizen soon after the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) for being unconstitutional, as was first reported by Americablog on Wednesday. The federally-sanctioned DOMA only recognizes marriage between a man and a woman, so Sean Brooks and his Colombian husband Steven’s marriage did not exist in the eyes of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Therefore, USCIS cancelled Steven’s green card petition. (Credit: The DOMA Project)

The ordeal for the couple started in 2011 when Sean, the American citizen, tried to file a green card petition for his husband based on their same-sex marriage. This left Steven in a visa limbo and vulnerable to deportation. Steven, who had not been back to Colombia for twelve years, applied to have his deportation cancelled based on the hardship that his deportation would incur on his spouse. The request was denied because federal law did not recognize same-sex couples.

As seen in the immediate cessation of Steve’s deportation, the Supreme Court’s ruling has a profound impact on the LGBT community. Roughly 24,700 other binational same-sex couples can now breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that they will not be torn away from the people they love. For a population of about 267,000 LGBT undocumented individuals, the Supreme Court ruling comes as a future goal post to look forward to now that federal laws has ended the discrimination against their love. It also will finally allow the federal government to treat all LGBT families equally by allowing them access to federal benefits and protections.

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Chris Christie’s Handpicked Interim Senator Works Against Immigration Reform

Gov. Chris Christie and interim Sen. Jeff Chiesa (R-NJ) (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) has endorsed comprehensive immigration reform legislation including enhanced border security and a path to citizenship. But his handpicked U.S. Senate appointee, Jeffrey Chiesa (R), has cast yet another vote against the Senate’s immigration bill on Wednesday.

Christie’s words have been in support of immigration reform for years. In 2010, he told ABC’s This Week, “The president and the Congress have to step up to the plate, they have to secure our borders, and they have to put forward a commonsense path to citizenship for people. And until they do that, states are going to struggle all over the country with this problem, and so is federal law enforcement, who doesn’t have the resources to do it effectively.” In February of this year, he showcased his support, noting, “We cannot expect to get support from the Latino community if we don’t make the Latino community feel welcome and important in our party,” as a state Latino advocacy PAC praised him for his support of “comprehensive immigration reform” with “shared responsibility approach between government and the undocumented.”

With the death of progressive champion Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D), Christie got a rare opportunity to pick anyone he wanted to serve in the U.S. Senate until an October special election. In announcing his friend and former aide Chiesa, Christie raved, “There are very few people in my life that I know better than Jeff.”

Chiesa promised to support efforts to secure the borders and to hear out all sides on the immigration issue.

But since joining 83 colleagues in voting to take up the “Gang of Eight” comprehensive immigration reform bill, Chiesa has been a reliable vote for opponents seeking to attach what supporters call “poison pill” amendments to the bill. Among these were a proposal to require completion of hundreds of miles of border fencing before undocumented immigrants could become permanent residents and another to require other tough “triggers” and at least a 90 percent apprehension rate at the Mexican border before the pathway to citizenship begins.

Wednesday, Chiesa was one of just 31 Senators — all Republicans — to vote against a procedural motion to let the Senate vote on adopting the final amended version of the bill. Its adoption, which required three-fifths support, paved the way for votes on the final version later this week.

Chiesa’s hard-line approach is at odds with the people he is supposed to represent. Recent polling in New Jersey shows 62 percent support for the comprehensive bill and 71 percent support for a path to citizenship.

While the bill seems to enjoy strong bipartisan support, Christie’s failure to appoint someone who supports his own stated position has made the path to comprehensive reform that much harder.

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Congressman Claims Immigration Bill Will ‘Force’ Immigrants To Become Citizens

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) (Credit: AP)

A Republican Congressman argued that the immigration measures making their way through the House of Representatives won’t include a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants because many don’t want to achieve legal status.

“The 11 million is not a homogeneous group,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s Immigration Subcommittee, said during an appearance on Fox News Sunday. “All of the 11 million don’t want citizenship. It would be curious to force it on those who don’t want it,” he added, noting that millions won’t be able to pass background checks.

Gowdy also insisted that the House will not take up the Senate measure, despite predictions from Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) — who appeared on the program before Gawdy — that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will feel forced to hold a vote on the legislation. Boehner told his conference on Wednesday that the House will pursue its own legislative solution, just one day before the Senate passed its bill with the support of 14 Republicans.

“I could see a million people on the mall the in August asking for the bill,” Schumer said. “Who’s going to be on oh stage? Not the usual suspects but bishops, Evangelicals and business leaders.” He added that DREAMers will continue lobbying House members to back the legislation and said that national party leaders will pressure Boehner to bring the bill up for a vote.

An analysis of the bill from the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 8 million of the approximately 11 million unauthorized residents “would initially gain legal status under the bill.”

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