Sean Bennett
Executive Director of DREAMWeavers Atlanta
Much of the rhetoric on the Sunday Political Talk-show indicated that
Immigration Reform is going to be a long, hard fought battle in the
House of Representatives. The most interesting aspect of the battle
might be the alignment of the playmakers - across party lines and
geographic significance, this issue is stratifying not just dividing.
Let's look at some of the heavyweights this week:
Roy H. Beck, President of the anti-immigration group, NumbersUSA, has stated in a LA Times article that his group is planning to launch an all-out assault on the members of the House.
Largely thought to have been responsible for killing the 2007 overhaul
of immigration, Beck's group is well known for flooding congressional
offices with phone calls, faxes, emails, and other forms of media blitz
that push the agenda of NumbersUSA.
Orrin Hatch, (R-Utah),
former Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and one of the
fourteen Republicans to vote for the bill in the Senate, stated on ABC's
"This Week", “I do think that our House members are going to take this
as a very serious challenge, and frankly, I’m counting on them.” Representative Mike Kelly agrees with him that Republicans should pass the reform, quoted in a Boston Globe article, “If we can’t do that, then shame on us.”
John Boehner,
(R-Ohio), Speaker of the House of representatives, has long voiced
opposition to taking up the immigration bill proposed by the Senate.
Boehner, back by most of the hard-line conservatives in the House, has
the ability to stall if not kill the bill by enacting the Hastert Rule which basically protects the majority in power.
In other news, Republicans have switched tactics arguing that President Obama would not enforce border security, News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch called
out House Republicans in a twitter blast, and Senate Majority Leader,
Herry Reid, predicts that, "they will act; they have to."
It looks like it will be a long week ahead.
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