A breakthrough? Some Senators actually talking immigration

Official Photo of U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill)

Something odd is occurring in the Senate in the midst of the so-called border “crisis.”

Sabrina Rodriguez, Burgess Everett, and Marianne Levine for Politic report that a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators met yesterday to discuss immigration reform. The meeting was convened yesterday by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin. 

GOP Senators John Cornyn (Texas), Thom Tillis (North Carolina), Susan Collins (Maine), Lindsey Graham (South Carolina}, and Mike Rounds (South Dakota) attended the meeting. Democratic Senators in attendance were Senators Alex Padilla (California), Kyrsten Sinema (Arizona), Chris Coons (Delaware), Michael Bennet (Colorado), Catherine Cortez Masto (Nevada), and Ben Ray Lujan (New Mexico).  Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mike Crapo of Idaho were invited, but could not attend.

Durbin has been holding one-on-one meetings with the GOP attendees for weeks, said a Democratic aide, laying the groundwork for meeting yesterday. The group will meet again to get into more details after a high-level talk.

One has to start somewhere.  We will see where the discussion slead.

KJ