Last week, the Senate passed the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill S. 744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013. The legislation passed by a vote of 68-32, with 14 Republicans supporting the measure. We applaud the Senate for their commitment to this issue and on passage of the legislation. Please click here to see the statement we released last week.
However, passage in the Senate was only the first of many battles that this legislation is facing. The House now needs to decide what it is going to do. House leadership is pledging to address immigration reform by passing individual pieces of legislation as opposed to a comprehensive measure. In this spirit, the House Judiciary Committee has already begun hearings and markups of various immigration related bills. However, many on both sides of the aisle are urging the House to take up the Senate bill. If the House passes several immigration bills, it will make it very difficult to go to conference. Conference happens when the House and Senate pass 2 different versions of the same legislation and meet to merge and compromise the bills. The compromise bill is then sent to both Chambers for a vote.
We urge the House to examine S. 744 and to consider the bill that passed the Senate as their starting point. We encourage the House to make the changes it deems necessary, but believe that the best and most direct path to immigration reform in this Congress will be by working with S. 744. We will continue to do all that we can to help move the ball forward on immigration in the House and look forward to working with Members of Congress and their staff on this critical issue.
