Immigration reform in the United States could be passed right now but not enacted until President Barack Obama has left office if the Republican Party really is afraid that he will fail to enforce the new rules, key Democratic Senator Charles Schumer has suggested.
Republican House Speaker John Boehner last week expressed doubts that the President’s long desired overhaul of the US immigration system would be able to be passed in 2014 and Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, has previously stated that there is not much in the way of interest in dealing with the issue given that there are congressional elections looming toward the end of the year. One of the biggest obstacles to the House of Representatives approving immigration reform, according to Boehner, is a lack of trust in Obama being willing to enforce any laws that do get passed.
This prompted New York Democrat Senator Charles Schumer, who was one of the Gang of Eight that crafted the immigration reform bill approved by the Senate last year, to suggest on NBC’s Meet the Press that the law should be enacted this year but not actually commence until 2017 when Obama will have left office.
“Now, I think the rap against him that he won’t enforce the law is false,” Schumer admitted. “He’s deported more people than any President but you could actually have the law start in 2017 without doing much violence to it.” Ohio Republican Representative Rob Portman says that some Republicans could be interested in Schumer’s suggestion.