Immigration activists are once again revving up their struggle to have immigration reform legislation passed prior to Thanksgiving, worried that politicians may shy away from the fight if it ends up continuing on into the campaign season for midterm elections scheduled for next year.
However, according to the Arizona Republic, the reform efforts have been damaged by the recent government shutdown and they claim that efforts for immigration reform are now unlikely to go ahead this year due to the deep level of distrust between the White House and Republicans in the House of Representatives: “House Republicans will not do this if they see it as “The President just beat us and now he’s going to shove this down our throats,” says the president of pro-immigration reform group ImmigrationWorks, Tamar Jacoby.
Jacoby says that this is just not going to be a way in which reform gets done, noting that what might make it potentially doable is if it is genuinely regarded as being in the best interests of the United States as well as being good for the Republican Party, and if it is presented as though it is a conservative reform rather than something that is being done because of the pressure from President Obama.
Last week Obama pledged to renew his attempts to get the immigration bill through the House of Representatives, which was passed by the Senate back in June. This would allow a path to citizenship to be offered to 11 million undocumented immigrants.