HOUSE ‘GANG OF SEVEN’ IMMIGRATION PLAN GOES UP IN SMOKE…

ANOTHER AMERICA-HATING DEMOCRAT

Apparently today there is also some good news on the amnesty front. Because in a blow to the hopes of passing immigration reform anytime soon, the bipartisan House "gang of seven" plan is probably dead, and almost certainly won’t be introduced this fall as promised, so says a top Democrat member of the "gang." "It doesn’t appear that we’re going to move forward with the group of seven," said Luis Gutierrez, who not all that long ago was touting the fact that he had more than enough Republicans on board to get the plan passed in the House. Gutierrez said, "The process is stalled. I don’t believe we’re going to produce a bill anytime soon."

This undermines what were already the dwindling prospects for reform, because the House "gang of seven" plan, which would provide a path to citizenship but is significantly to the right of the Senate bill, was seen as a ‘comprehensive’ plan Republicans who genuinely want to solve the immigration problem just might coalesce around. But Gutierrez said that House Republicans on the gang of seven, who have been trying to negotiate comprehensive reform that members of both parties can support for a long time, are just not prepared to embrace a final plan. He blames House GOP leaders for not providing Republicans on the gang with sufficient support.

"The bipartisan group just wasn’t getting support from Republican House leadership," Gutierrez complained. "It’s just not gonna happen now." Gutierrez said that he continues to believe there is substantial tacit support for immigration reform even among Republicans, but that the GOP leadership refuses to acknowledge this or try to make something happen. "We need the GOP leadership to acknowledge the votes exist for reform," he said. If this was actually about reform, that would be one thing, but it’s not. What it’s about is granting amnesty and creating millions of new Democrat voters in the process. So this moron can peddle his crap elsewhere.

Immigration reformers had hoped for what they call a "bipartisan moment" on reform in October, after the government shutdown fight is resolved — one that could have involved rolling out the gang of seven plan. But Gutierrez cast doubt on the possibility, noting he doesn’t expect anything to happen with the gang’s bill "anytime in the near future." Democratic sources have said that they believe leading House Republicans on the gang, such as GOP Reps. John Carter and Sam Johnson, both conservatives who risked exposing themselves to potential blowback from the right, are now getting ready to publicly announce that the gang of seven plan just ain’t gonna happen.

So while it has been reported that Republicans on the gang have backed away from reform because they we catching heat from many of their conservative constituents who wanted more assurances on border security, Gutierrez maintains that those Republicans were prepared to support the emerging compromise, but didn’t because they simply didn’t have support from GOP leadership. "We had agreed on virtually everything," Gutierrez says. "The last components were enforcement components" that were down to differences over "nuances" and "language." The passing of any new immigration policy should not be about nuances. It should, first and foremost, be about adequately securing our porous borders.

But that doesn’t mean the battle is over. Instead, reformers are likely to focus on another possibility. House Republicans could roll out a series of piecemeal bills, including border security measures and citizenship for just the DREAMers, which House GOP leaders support. Something that has already been floated by Cantor. If such things were to pass, it’s possible the House and Senate could get to conference negotiations, an outcome some ‘reformers’ want. But really all that’s been presented in public sounds like nothing more than an end run around current objections regarding amnesty and border security. And something that makes me more than a bit nervous is the involvement in the House discussion of Chuckie Schumer.

But for that to happen, House Republican leaders would have to be willing to allow votes on these measures this fall, and more to the point, allow Republicans to enter into conference talks, which could mean further pressure to make concessions and compromise, something conservative opponents of reform are heavily resisting. And while it’s still unclear how House GOP leaders will proceed, they appear unwilling to move anything that isn’t supported by a majority of Republicans, and this is exactly how it should be. Scraping by with a majority of Democrats and just enough Republicans is not going to be acceptable. So Boehner and Cantor should put that little thought out of their heads right now!

So at this point in time it remains very possible that House Republican leaders will choose to simply let reform die, prioritizing their base over what some see as being the need to ‘repair’ GOP relations with Latino voters. But as I have said before, if our only way to entice Latino voters into the GOP is to allow those who have been breaking our laws, potentially for years, a free pass into our country, then maybe they are better suited to be members of the Democrat Party, where the breaking of our laws seems to be no big deal. Latinos have just as much at stake as do the rest of us should the economic and fiscal collapse currently being engineered by Barry and the Democrats takes place. So they need to decide what their priorities really are.