Immigration and a Need for Rational Compromise...

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny

America must indeed do something to overcome the HUGE immigration problem created over the past thirty three plus years. A problem that everyone (in both parties) one knew was developing and yet no one in either party had any real interest in addressing. So... here we are. Faced with HUGE problem that won;'t go away by itself and will requires some level of rational thinking on the part of both the democrats as well as republicans.

Speaker John Boehner may not get it right often, however, when he stated... “we’d be in a much weaker position if we didn’t act" with respect to immigration reform he was EXACTLY right.

THE HILL - Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) urged their House Republican colleagues to pass immigration reform legislation in a closed-door meeting Wednesday, with the Speaker arguing his conference would be “in a much weaker position” if it failed to act.

A divided House Republican conference met for more than two hours in the basement of the Capitol to begin hashing out a response to the sweeping immigration bill the Senate passed last month.

Boehner spoke at the outset of the meeting and reiterated his pledge that no immigration bill, including a final House-Senate conference report, would come to the floor without the support of a majority of the House GOP. But both he and Ryan, the House budget chief and the GOP’s vice presidential nominee in 2012, made the case that the House GOP should take action on immigration in a way that reflected the party’s principles, Republicans in the room said.

Boehner “said we’d be in a much weaker position if we didn’t act,” according to Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.). “He clearly wants to act, thinks something needs to get done. Frankly, our principles are probably closer to where the American people are, but it’s incumbent upon us to act.”

The party leadership did not lay out a timetable for floor votes in the meeting, though members indicated leaders could develop a timeline in the coming weeks.

Members said it was likely that the House would wait until after the August congressional recess to act, although votes on individual border security and interior enforcement bills that have passed out of committee were possible before then.

Following the meeting, Ryan said he was optimistic the House would act.

“I think our members are ready to tackle this issue. It needs to be fixed,” he told reporters. “There is an emerging consensus that our immigration system is broken, that we need to fix it, and we need to do it in a very thorough way.

“I feel very good. I feel we are in very good position to do it the right way. We don't want to rush anything,” he said before diving into a crowded elevator.

But opponents of any legislation providing a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants said there was no consensus on immigration's most controversial issue.

“There is little consensus in there for doing anything other than border security," said Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.). {Read More}

At this point I refer you to the preceding post...

Via: Memeorandum