By Claudio Iván Remeseira Follow @HispanicNewYork| Posted on Thursday, November 14, 2013, at 3:38p.m. ET.
Conventional wisdom says that immigration reform is dead, specially now that Speaker Boehner has stated (for the nth time) that House Republicans don't want to sit down with his colleagues in the Senate to discuss a consensual bill. But Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), of the bipartisan Gang of 8 that drafted the Senate bill last June, remains optimistic. On Thursday, he told The Huffington Post's Sam Stein that Congress could pass an immigration bill by mid-2014:
"I think it will become a reality, because the House is in peril of losing its majority if it does nothing ... They have to do something. The Republican leadership in the House knows that. Speaker Boehner knows that."
The Altantic's Molly Ball elaborates on this:
"It might even happen this year, Schumer said, though he acknowledged that's unlikely because Republicans won't want to change the subject from "all the fuss about Obamacare." But there's "a real good chance" of reform passing in the first half of 2014, he said. Schumer based his confidence on the political reality facing the GOP. As many as 30 House Republicans could lose their seats if immigration reform fails, he said, while many conservative power brokers, such as Rupert Murdoch, the Koch brothers, and big business want reform. Meanwhile, the bipartisan passage of the Senate bill put pressure on the House to act, he said.
Read more at The Atlantic
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