A new administration is taking office in a couple of weeks, and there appears to be a real hunger from both parties for comprehensive immigration reform.
The impetus for this hunger is the Laken Riley Act that recently passed the House with 48 Democrats voting for it. Democrats lost the 2024 election at every level as the American people decisively rejected their open borders policies that allowed 8 million migrants to enter the United States. The resulting backlash has chastened almost the entire Democratic Party and made them more open to genuine border security measures as well as reforming asylum procedures, visas, and other immigration issues.
“If we can’t get at least seven out of 47 [Democrats to overcome a filibuster], then that’s a reason why we lost," said Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman about support for the Laken Rily Act in the Senate.
The bipartisan immigration deal worked out last year between the White House and several senators was torpedoed partly because Trump recognized the historic nature of the legislation and that it would hand Biden a major victory in an election year.
The significant thing about that bill was that most Democrats supported it. Forget the "triggers" that would have closed the border. The changes to asylum rules would have made it far more difficult to claim asylum successfully and substantially sped up the approval/disapproval process.
Might that and other GOP-supported immigration proposals form the basis for a comprehensive immigration bill?
An AP-NORC poll this week showed immigration is suddenly the issue that Americans mention most when asked what problems they want the government to work on over the next year. The percentage citing immigration among their top five issues has risen from 27 percent in December 2022 to 35 percent a year ago all the way to 47 percent last month. Over that span, it has surpassed foreign policy, general economic issues and even inflation.
And the increase has been bipartisan. While Republicans have long had immigration at or near the top of their list, the percentage of Democrats citing immigration has more than doubled from 14 percent in late 2022 to 32 percent today. It’s also doubled among independents, from 20 percent to 41 percent.
How high on Trump's "to-do" list should immigration reform be? It's already a list swollen with pressing concerns about the economy and international relations. There has been some discussion among Republicans to include some immigration reform in the Reconciliation bill. This would avoid the prospect of a filibuster in the Senate because Reconciliation only needs a majority.
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However, Reconciliation doesn't allow changes to policy, only budget matters. Democrats tried several times to pass amendments on gun control, Obamacare, and their own version of immigration reform only to have the Senate parliamentarian throw out the amendments for violating the "Byrd Rule" on non-germane issues included in Reconciliation.
We’ve seen several false starts on major immigration reform in recent years, including efforts at comprehensive immigration legislation (i.e. addressing paths to citizenship and legal status along with border security) during George W. Bush’s presidency and after Republicans briefly got religion on the subject after losing the 2012 election. There was also the effort last year to forge a bipartisan border security bill.
Supporting the idea of immigration reform and achieving a specific immigration bill are two entirely different things. Finding a consensus has proved to be next to impossible. That's why it's likely that immigration "reform" will be an ongoing process that takes a gradualist approach to the issue. After the passage of the Laken Riley Act, Congress might turn to visa or asylum reform.
It will be a lot easier to find consensus on individual issues than a comprehensive package in which everyone will find something to oppose.
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