Immigration Hearings October 18

On October 7, Immigration Daily (www.ilw.com) reported the following:

“a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing entitled “Comprehensive Immigration Reform II” has been scheduled for October 18th with both DOL Secretary Chao and DHS Secretary Chertoff to testify. It is a concrete sign of forward movement and reaffirms that immigration reform is indeed on President Bush’s agenda. Immigration reform is now within sight, with House and Senate floor action expected before Thanksgiving. We look forward to a comprehensive immigration reform package perhaps one blending Cornyn-Kyl with McCain-Kennedy. Despite what you may hear to the contrary, the votes for large scale immigration reform exist in Congress and only slight prodding from the President is necessary to see this critical reform enacted. This is surely welcome news to a bar besieged by retrogression amongst many other severe challenges. Even if advocacy is not ordinarily on your agenda, this may be a good time to put a little effort to ensure that immigration success stories remain in the media forefront to counter the expected ferocious barrage from the anti-immigrationists. “

Despite the optism of the reporter, does anyone really think that meaningful comprehensive immigration reform will likely result in the next few months? To me, it seems unlikely. Perhaps, we will see another REAL ID, guest worker, or regularization bill? These types of responses, however, only delay for the future the need to address the issues.  By the way, what was “”Comprehensive Immigration Reform II”?

KJ