Restarting Immigration Reform

Questions remain about whether Republicans will show good faith on immigration reform.

The House continues to sit on the comprehensive Senate bill that was passed back in June. House Democrats introduced a comprehensive bill modeled on the Senate bill on October 2, H.R. 15, sponsored by South Florida congressman Joe Garcia (D) and 184 co-sponsors (ALL Dems). But it has practically no chance of making it out of committee. Instead, House Republicans favor a piecemeal approach to the many related immigration reform issues, and they have produced a series of "mini" bills that deal with some, but not all of the issues covered by the comprehensive bills.

However, recent reports indicate that certain House Republicans are currently drafting a measure to address the largest issue - those millions of individuals who are in the U.S. without legal immigration status, either because they entered without inspection or overstayed their visas.

Greg Sargent spoke with another South Florida congressman Mario Diaz-Balart (R), who informed him of the effort. Diaz-Balart emphasized that "securing the border" must come before any legalization, and that House Republicans will only support a piecemeal approach to immigration reform. However, he also insisted that the debate must move forward, because immigration reform is too important to be blocked by conservatives' mistrust of Obama.

We know that most of America agrees with him - let's hope that most House Republicans will also agree.