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Health & Fitness

Immigration Reform: So What Happens Next?

On September 11, 2001, my daughter was working on the 52nd Floor of One World Trade Center.  She arrived early that morning at the maritime law firm where she worked, because she had to leave early for law school in White Plains that day.  When her building shook so hard that ceiling tiles fell down, her military training kicked in and she left her law books, her laptop and her purse; walking down 52 flights of stairs with only her house keys.  She was one of the survivors.  But on that day, immigration in the US changed.

 Those who want to fix the immigration system have been working on it for the past 12 years.  There have been marches, petitions, letters, telephone calls to Congress, talk shows, until 8 bipartisan senators decided to create a compromise.

 The US Senate passed Bill S. 744 by a 68-32 vote on June 27, 2013.  Now the immigration debate moves to the US House of Representatives. 

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 The House Republican leadership has made a point of saying that whatever happened in the Senate, the House will move at its own pace and may draft a different immigration bill which includes even stricter enforcement.  The House now needs to debate and pass their own immigration reform bill that they can take to a conference committee with the Senate.  The House and Senate have to agree on some common version of a bill, and then pass that exact identical version, which then gets sent to the President for his signature. 

 The House says that it will not pass S. 744 as it stands.  But, the House doesn't have to pass the exact same bill as the Senate.  The House can pass its own version of an immigration reform bill, and that can be the one that the Speaker of the House takes to the conference committee with the Senate bill.  There is tremendous pressure on the House leadership.  If the House doesn't move forward, and blocks immigration reform, analysts predict that tremendous damage will occur to the Republican Party.  There is a bi-partisan majority in the House that supports immigration reform with a path to citizenship. 

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 American is diversifying, as seen with the election of President Obama, as seen with the passage of immigration reform in the US Senate, and as seen with the overturn of DOMA Defense of Marriage Act.  The future of American politics is changing. 

 The Senate bill is not perfect, but it is the best we have so far.  The increased border security amendment sponsored by 2 senators who live in Tennessee and North Dakota, not anywhere near the Mexican border, doubles the size of the Border Patrol from 20,000 to 40,000 (about 3 times the manpower of the FBI) and completion of 700 miles of border fencing.  What does this do to Mexico-US relations?  This will most certainly endanger the lives of Americans living along the border, and those trying to enter the US in the future. 

 

A person desperate to feed his family, or desperate to escape persecution or death in his country, will find a way to go over, around or under any fence.  

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