Thursday, Thursday. After weeks of speculation and two spats of rescheduling the Obama administration is set to hold a bipartisan meeting in Washington D.C. tomorrow to discuss moving forward with immigration reform. A variety of topics are likely to be examined, but most important will be legislation that can provide a path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented people who live and work in the United States.
Now the questions are when immigration reform will be passed and how it will survive the U.S. Senate vote for cloture?
While the White House, and specifically press secretary Robert Gibbs, has been reluctant to say that immigration reform will be proposed this year, the Americas' Voice campaign reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claims to have the votes that are needed to pass reform right now, and even Democratic New York Sen. Charles Schumer is itching to tackle the issue after telling Roll Call today that "all of the fundamental building blocks are in place to pass comprehensive immigration reform this session and, even possibly, later this year."
Recently there has been a lot of frustration from immigrant rights groups due to a couple of factors. Some colleagues saw the Obama administration's rescheduling of the meeting, which was originally slated for June 8, as some kind of sign that the White House was not serious about reform. Others want immigration reform to be passed this year, something that will be difficult with the administration's push to revamp the health care system, which is also an important and arduous cause.
Bellyaching aside, it's resoundingly clear that President Obama will work for immigration reform during his first four years, and I'd venture to guess it would probably happen sooner than later. Think about it. Five months into his term and amid the congressional health care battle Obama is still moving forward to hold meetings to strategize over making immigration reform into a reality. And yeah, God forfend, the first get-together was postponed by 16 days. But there's no denying that by all indications the White House is very serious about passing immigration reform and including a bipartisan grouping of lawmakers in the process. After all, that's how legislation gets passed.
Intimately knowing the toll our broken immigration system takes on individuals, groups like America's Voice are still pushing for reform as soon as possible, and they're doing it in a smart way. The campaigns' executive director was on MSNBC today:
Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, said it was smart policy and smart politics to take up immigration reform. He noted that Obama was elected in no small part because independent voters thought he and the Democrats were best able to find solutions to challenging problems like immigration. He also said Republicans "will have a huge price to pay" if they are seen as blocking immigration reform and scapegoating immigrants and Latinos.
Asked about Robert Gibbs' recent comment that the "math" might be against immigration reform this year, Sharry replied, 'When it comes to counting votes in the U.S. Congress, we tend to look to Harry Reid before Robert Gibbs.'"
It may take longer than anticipated, but make no mistake, immigration reform is coming to America.