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“While I understand the passion and understand the feeling behind it, I think it’s not necessarily constructive at this point,” Sen. Bob Menendez (DN.J.) told reporters on Monday. He reiterated that Democrats will come up with alternatives in the hope of obtaining a “positive result”.
Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus were also quick to take the next steps when they returned to Washington on Monday, less than 24 hours after the Senate arbitrator’s verdict. Although they provided few details on how they would change their strategy, these Democrats insisted they could find a way to push immigration beyond Byzantine Senate rules.
Privately, however, Democrats admit that the parliamentarian likely paved the way for expanding legal status without GOP votes in their $ 3.5 trillion social spending plan.
The parliamentarian’s decision is the latest thorn in Democrats’ side as they seek to push major progressive priorities into law through the so-called budget reconciliation process, which allows them to avoid GOP obstruction in the Senate. Many in Biden’s party saw the reconciliation plan as their best chance to deliver on their promise to enact immigration reform this Congress, after years of stalled bipartisan talks.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) Said on Monday that Democrats “have a plan B, C and D” and they would meet with the parliamentarian again soon. When asked if he would support trying to overthrow her if the Democrats’ backup plans were rejected, Durbin replied, “I don’t think that’s realistic.”
According to several people familiar with the talks, an alternative policy Democrats and advocates are proposing is to narrow their immigration horizons by making a simple change to a decades-old “registry” law. This law allows immigrants to apply for a green card if they arrived in the United States before a certain year, and this date was last amended in 1986 to allow undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States before 1972 to apply for legal status.
Some Democrats say that simply updating this law to a more recent year, significantly increasing the number of immigrants eligible to apply for legal status, could be approved by the Senate parliamentarian.
“The registry is a possibility,” said Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.), Noting that the law has not been updated since the Reagan era. “We are looking at all the different alternatives. We are not giving up.”
Menendez confirmed his interest in this approach: “We are not changing the law which was the essence of his arguments which I read in his opinion,” he said. “We are only updating a date.”
Including some sort of immigration reform in the party’s social spending program is a top priority for both the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the much larger Congressional Progressive Caucus. This bloc of about 100 House members has described immigration as one of the five priorities that must be in their package to gain support from the left.
In the House, at least two Latino Democrats have vowed to oppose the whole package if immigration reform is not included. Yet other lawmakers and aides have speculated that these Democrats would be forced to lessen their threat if the parliamentarian fully rejects the strategy.
One of these Democrats, Representative Chuy Garcia, reiterated Monday that “immigration reform must be part of reconciliation”.
The Illinois Democrat also suggested there might be another option – bypassing the parliamentarian, something Senate Democrats have little appetite for.
“We would like to exhaust all avenues before we get to something like this. But we must remember that its role is to interpret the rules. In the past, the body has overstepped the recommendations of the parliamentarian,” Garcia said. .
Democrats argued to the parliamentarian that the budgetary effect of granting permanent legal status to dreamers, farm laborers, essential workers during the pandemic and those with temporary protected status would be large enough to be included in the reconciliation, as more people would become eligible for federal benefits. But the parliamentarian concluded that their proposal is “a new broad immigration policy”, inaugurating a societal change which “far outweighs the budgetary impact”.
The parliamentarian’s Sunday decision is also likely to renew calls from the left in the Senate to remove legislative obstruction, something which Senate Democrats currently lack the votes to do.
“We predicted it would be very difficult,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas).
When asked if there would be calls within the Hispanic caucus to override the Senate Rules Officer, Escobar said “we’re not there yet.”
Senate Republicans, meanwhile, praised the parliamentarian. Senator Thom Tillis (RN.C.), who is part of a bipartisan task force focused on immigration reform, said Sunday’s decision “rejects the idea that either parties could go it alone ”and could motivate Republicans and Democrats to return to table negotiations on the subject.
The bipartisan working group has met several times, including in early summer, but there is little evidence of progress so far. Senate Republicans have said they don’t want to tackle a path to citizenship without changing Biden’s border policy.
When asked if bipartisan immigration reform was possible this Congress, Tillis offered an ironic dose of reality.
“Of course,” he said. “Just like the last 20.”
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