Even though the comprehensive immigration reform bill written by the Senate passed a vote (68 to 32) last month, the truth of the matter is that most people did not (correctly) believe that the House would ratify the bill and turn it into law.
There are a number of reasons why most people believe that it is simply wouldn’t happen, many of them having to do with the diametrically opposite ideologies that Senate Democrats and House Republicans have, but also because of the seriousness of providing amnesty for nearly 12,000,000 illegal immigrants currently living in the United States – the big push of the Senate bill.
However, though there are certainly skeptics on both sides of the aisle that immigration reform will ever truly be accomplished, the truth of the matter is that a number of people – including immigration lawyers– believe that it could happen as soon as the first quarter of 2014.
Immigration before simply will not happen before the August 2013 recess – but it could happen early next year
We have to remember that the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill was some 1200 pages – absolutely filled to the brim with all different kinds of details, clauses, and porkbarrel bureaucracy that is going to have to be navigated before it can be ratified. And with the House leadership all the promising that this bill will be dead on arrival – and that they will instead take charge of the immigration reform issues themselves – it’s not difficult to understand that we’re not going to have any quick answers when it comes to correcting the broken system that we are currently operating under.
On the flipside, there are a number of influential people who believe that immigration reform can and will happen in the first quarter of 2014, shortly after Congress comes back into recess after the holiday break. Now, this may have a lot to do with the belief that the American public as a whole simply will not allow immigration to continue as it is right now – the general public understands just how broken our immigration system truly is.
“Winning” immigration reform is critically important moving forward – for both parties
On top of that, neither party can afford to have a long and drawn out battle on immigration reform and risk alienating the incredibly important and influential Hispanic and Latino community before the upcoming elections. Each party would love nothing more than to “win” the debate on immigration reform – but a long and drawn out battle will certainly cripple their chances to generate the kind of goodwill they need to put their parties back into power moving forward.
All in all, it’s shaping up to be one of the more important political issues to face the American people in decades – and one that is going to take its own sweet time getting figured out.
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