Reid Urges Frist to Resume Immigration Legislative Efforts

–Yesterday, SenateDemocratic Leader Harry Reid today sent the following letter to Senate MajorityLeader Bill Frist, urging him to bring immigration reform back before theSenate for debate at the earliest opportunity. Republican opposition may havederailed reform once, but the American people are calling on their governmentfor action. Democrats remain committed to the comprehensive reform needed tosecure our borders, and fix our broken immigration system.

Thetext of the letter follows below.

April 12, 2006

TheHonorable William Frist, M.D.

, U.S.Senate Majority Leader

, S-230 The Capitol

,

Dear Bill:

I amwriting to urge that you bring the immigration bill back before the full Senateat the earliest opportunity.  In my view the Senate should resume theimmigration debate immediately after we complete work on the supplementalappropriations bill. 

Thepeaceful, dignified rallies across the country earlier this week underscore theneed for Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform this year.  Ourcurrent immigration system is broken.  We must strengthen border security,create legal mechanisms for American companies to hire essential temporaryemployees and allow the 11 million undocumented workers in the United States to Come out of the shadows.

Last week,Senate Democrats twice voted to move forward on such a comprehensiveimmigration bill, but not a single Republican backed our efforts.  Yourown position was very confusing.  Initially, you set a deadline for theJudiciary Committee to report a comprehensive bill to the full Senate, butafter the Committee met that deadline you insisted that the Senate instead takeup your bill modeled on the harsh enforcement-only bill passed by the Houselast year.  You then said you favored comprehensive reform, but whenChairman Specter offered the bipartisan committee bill as an amendment youvoted against my motion to consider that approach in a timely fashion. 

It wasespecially baffling when you voted against your own cloture motion on theHagel/Martinez substitute amendment last Friday.  The only reason to filecloture is to limit debate and amendments, so it was illogical for you to filecloture and then complain that Democrats were not allowing a sufficient numberof amendments.  In any event, we were in an unusual procedural posture inwhich a successful cloture vote would have simply placed the Hagel/Martinezamendment before the Senate for further amendments. 

Yourdecision to defeat your own cloture motion delayed the Senate’s considerationof immigration reform for no apparent reason.  I can only conclude thatyou had second thoughts about Hagel/Martinez after right-wing members of yourcaucus made known their strong opposition to it.

Similarly,President Bush’s support for comprehensive immigration reform seemed to wilt inthe face of right-wing opposition.  The President expressed generalsupport for the Hagel/Martinez compromise, but to my knowledge made no effortto persuade Republican Senators to forego weakening amendments.  We cannotachieve comprehensive immigration reform in the absence of presidential leadership. Immigration reform is vital to America’s national security. I look forward to the Senate resuming this important debate in the very near future.

Sincerely,

Harry Reid

bh